Lost
by Hank's Lady
Summary: This is Jacob's story, starting when he turns 18. Lost, alone and desperate to escape his pain, he leaves La Push and goes looking for a new life.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:- I don't own any of the characters from Twilight, they belong to Stephanie Meyer, sadly. **

**Notes:- In case you missed the summary, this story will have Slash content in later chapters; don't read if you don't like. I'm writing from Jacob's point of view, beginning after Bella's wedding. Jacob struggles on in La Push until he turns eighteen, but still unable to forget Bella and then having Billy's death to cope with, he decides the only thing he can do is leave his old life behind.**

**This one won't be updated as quickly as "One Kiss" for the moment as I want to finish that one first - but this story was just calling out to me to be written so I had to at least get the first chapter down.**

CHAPTER ONE

After Bella got married on August thirteenth, I continued to gradually fall apart. I spent a couple of months living as a wolf before that, hiding out in the Rockies, distancing myself from the pack as much as I could. I could still hear Sam's thoughts sometimes, but I shut myself off from him so that he wouldn't be able to find me. I came back for the wedding, but when I found out she planned to spend her honeymoon with Edward still as herself, risking her life and then dying anyway when he changed her, I didn't want to have to deal with it any more. When I was my wolf self, I was free from the pain and longing.

I made myself keep going for a week after they went to Rio and then I ran away from it all. I phased and ran back to Canada. No one would follow me there, not even Sam. I doubted they would even want to. Everyone else was happy. Most of the original members of the pack had all Imprinted; Sam had Emily of course; Jared had Imprinted on Kim, who had a crush on him at school for a year before he noticed her; Embry had Marie, a girl from the Makah tribe who was the daughter of one of his Mom's friends; Quil had Emily's little niece, Claire. That was kind of weird, with her being only two years old, but sometimes it happened like that. He took on the role of elder brother with her and it seemed to work. It wouldn't develop into anything else until she reached her teens.

I had tried Imprinting on Bella more than once and it never worked. Of course it wouldn't; it was automatic, instinctive; fate. It wasn't going to happen just because I wanted it and now she was lost to me forever. The hardest part was that she admitted she loved me, only she loved Edward more and would rather give up everything - her family, her friends, her life - to be with him, than live a relatively normal life with me.

The only other one of the original five who hadn't Imprinted was Paul. I'd never seen him with anyone and he never indicated there was someone he liked. I guess it was no surprise the girls didn't like him. He was surly and bad-tempered, usually glowering and making himself look completely unapproachable. He and I clashed pretty badly a lot of the time, starting with him phasing and threatening Bella. I fought with him and it wasn't playful, the way I sometimes sparred with Embry or Quil - it was vicious. I came out on top, having impaled him on a tree branch and he seemed to resent the fact that I was stronger. It led to more fights in the future and Sam always seemed to be getting in between the two of us, reminding us we were supposed to be on the same side.

I wasn't going to miss them. Well, I would a little, but not painfully so. Sam could be overbearing, making it clear things had to be his way or no way; Quil and Embry were closer to each other and to their Imprints than they were to me and Paul...well, I already explained about him. If I never saw him again it wouldn't exactly break my heart. The pack had also gained Leah and Seth Clearwater and I guessed I would miss Seth. He was like everybody's little kid brother; sweet and funny and loyal. Leah - well, she was a female version of Paul, only nastier if that were possible.

The only person I was really going to miss was Dad. I couldn't tell him what I was doing or how I felt. He'd been through enough hell with me over the past couple of years, with me pining over Bella, running away, fighting against what I was and then getting injured in the fight with the vampire army. Now I was going to run away again and I didn't want to tell him that; I didn't want to see the worry in his face.

I waited until he went to bed that night, sitting in the darkness in my room watching the illuminated hands of my clock slowing moving around towards midnight. When I eventually heard Dad snoring, I crept into the kitchen to leave the note I had written by the toaster. I knew it was the coward's way out, simply leaving a note saying I needed to leave. I almost tore it up, but eventually I stood a glass on top of it to make sure it didn't blow away when I opened the door.

Ten minutes later La Push was behind me. I had run to the edge of the meadow wearing just shorts, phased there and then started to flee. I kept on running without a pause until I reached the mountains and felt snow beneath my paws and then I ran some more until I was lost in the northern most part of the Rockies, hundreds of miles from home. There I stayed for six months and no one came looking for me.

Occasionally I tuned into Sam's thoughts, worried he may search for me. He had talked to the others, but they decided I wasn't going to get over things if I was forced to face up to it before I was ready and they left me to do what I needed to. I continued to live as a wolf until a month after my seventeenth birthday and just as I had decided I was ready to go back, to deal with the things I had put off by leaving, I heard Sam's voice in my head.

_"Jacob, if you're hearing me, you really need to come back. Billy's sick. He needs you."_

I was home two days later and nothing was different; if anything it was worse because I knew my Dad was dying. His diabetes had led to heart disease and he had spent a couple of weeks in hospital during my absence. He had been allowed home since and Sue Clearwater had taken up residence in the house to look after him, but they doubted he would last more than a year.

I hated myself for not being there, for running away to make it easier on myself. I did everything I could to make the time Dad had left happy, but inside I felt like I was dying with him. I was losing him, the one person who had always been there for me and at the same time, the pain of losing Bella had hit me all over again the minute I shifted back to human. All I had done for the last six months was put off the inevitable and now I had to start from the beginning, trying to get over it all, to move on when I had nothing to move on to.

During that year I continued working as a mechanic, doing repairs, rebuilding engines, rescuing old wrecks and doing them up to sell, saving every last cent that I could. What with that and being with Dad, I had little time for anything else and I virtually severed all contact with the pack. I saw Sam because he and Emily came over to spend time with Dad every so often, but the others had their own lives. Even Leah had eventually found a boy on the reservation that she liked and although she didn't Imprint, she got over her feelings for Sam and her bitterness towards him for Imprinting on Emily and leaving her.

Dad died six weeks after I turned eighteen. Sue helped me arrange the funeral and I saw him off numbly. I didn't have room in me for any more pain than I was already feeling. For a year it had felt as if a huge hole had been punched through me and as I watched Dad's coffin being lowered into the earth, I only wished it was me in there. I didn't want to go on living like this for even another minute.

Sue and Sam and Emily came back to the house with me afterwards, but I politely asked them to leave after an hour. Sue and Emily went, but Sam lingered.

"You shouldn't be on your own," he said.

"I'm used to being on my own."

"You're not going to do anything stupid, are you?"

"You might think it's stupid," I grunted. "I'm leaving." I hadn't really thought about it seriously, but when the words popped out of my mouth, suddenly it seemed like the best thing to do. Maybe if I left La Push, tried to make a new life for myself somewhere different, I could forget everything, or at least let it fade so that it didn't hurt any more. Perhaps that was what I had been saving my money for, subconsciously knowing what decision I would make when I finally lost Dad.

"Leaving? You're just going to run away again? It doesn't go away, Jacob, it just waits for you to come back," Sam said sadly.

"I don't mean as a wolf," I said. "I mean I'm going to put the house up for sale, pack up and drive."

"Where?"

"I don't know. Anywhere. Until I find somewhere I like the look of, I guess."

"Don't, please. At least give it a little time. Your friends are all here," Sam protested.

"You've all got your own lives, you're all happy. I don't want to be here any more. If I stay, I probably won't make it. At least somewhere else I'll have a chance."

Sam nodded slowly. "Maybe you're right. It could be good for you. Just keep in touch, alright? We'll all still be here if you need us. You only have to call and we'll come running."

"Yeah. Thanks."

Sam left me alone then and I spent the rest of the day packing up the things I wanted to take with me; just enough to fill the back of Dad's truck. I spoke to a realtor and put the house up for sale and arranged an auction for all the contents, to be overseen by an agent. I stayed two more days to wrap things up, even selling the much-loved motorcycle I had rebuilt with Bella before she had thrown my friendship and love back in my face and run off to Italy to make sure the bloodsucker she now called a husband didn't do himself in. I laughed at myself then, aware it sounded a touch hysterical. I almost sounded as bitter as Leah once had at the moment. Leaving La Push could only be good for me.

Seth came to see me on the morning I was due to leave. Sam had already called me earlier to wish me luck and remind me to get in touch if I needed anything. Now Seth was on the doorstep with tears in his eyes, begging me to reconsider.

"What am I gonna do without my big brother?" he said sadly.

"You still have four others," I reminded him.

"You were always my favourite." His bottom lip quivered. "Come on, Jake, you can't just go."

"I have to. It's the only way I can get over everything," I said, wondering if I ever would, even without constant reminders around me.

"Yeah, I guess." He sighed heavily. "You are gonna come back, aren't you?"

"Maybe. One day." I hated not being able to make him any promises, but I could see he understood. He hung around for a little longer, then gave me a hug and left.

There was only one thing left for me to do. I carried the last box out to the truck and covered it with a tarp, locked the door and put the key under a plant pot for the realtor to collect. Then I drove to the cemetery to say goodbye to Dad. I parked up close to the gate and walked slowly along the grass aisle between the graves until I reached his. The stone was brand new, black marble, engraved with: 'Billy Black, loving father of Jacob, tribal leader and friend to all.'

Shit. Even reading that almost had me throwing myself onto the ground and screaming for him to come back. Instead I sat down on a fancy iron seat close by and talked to him, not out loud, but in my head. That way I could almost hear his voice; almost convince myself that he was answering me.

I must have sat there for an hour. I didn't realise it would be this hard to walk away. In the end I forced myself to get up and walk back to the truck. Somehow I had managed to hold it together thus far, but when I reached the vehicle, I broke up before I even opened the door. I leaned against the side of the truck, rested my folded arms on the top of the door where I had left the window down, and dropped my head onto them. Tears poured down my face and I sobbed like a child, completely unable to control myself.

Suddenly I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was no longer alone and I forced myself to get a grip, straightening up and scrubbing my hands over my face. Chances are it was just another grieving person visiting a grave so they weren't going to turn a hair at the sight of a young man howling like a baby by the gate.

"I'm sorry about your Dad."

I stiffened and stopped breathing for a couple of seconds. It was Paul's voice. The last person on earth I wanted to see right at that moment.

"Thanks," I grunted, wondering why he had suddenly decided to bother offering his condolences. I hadn't seen him for weeks, except briefly at the funeral although he hadn't spoken to me. He spent most of his time in Forks where he had initially started working in a tattoo store before setting up on his own when he had become good enough.

"Sam says you're leaving La Push."

"Yeah." I pulled the door of the truck open now and climbed onto the seat. I didn't want to talk. I just wanted him to go away and let me leave.

"Don't you think you'd be better off staying where your friends are?" he said.

"If I thought that, I'd be staying, wouldn't I?" I reached out to grab the door and slammed it closed. Much to my annoyance he leaned on to the top of it, right where I had been leaning just a moment ago.

"Jake, look, I'm sorry about...everything," he said. "Considering the pack is supposed to be close, I haven't been much of a friend to you."

_Now_ he decided to apologise for being an asshole?

"Forget it," I said shortly.

Was it my imagination, or did he actually look sorry? Sad, even?

"I'm sure Sam said the same thing, but if you need anything, don't think twice about calling...us."

"Yeah. I have to go."

"Sure. Sorry." He backed away from the truck at last. "Good luck. Wherever you end up."

I nodded, started the engine and reversed quickly off the grass by the gate. When I drove off, I could see him in the rearview mirror, standing in the middle of the street staring after me until I turned off and lost sight of him. Weird. I frowned as I thought about the awkward conversation. He had almost seemed upset that I was leaving. Well, the hell with him. I had more important things to think about - or to avoid thinking about.

It was only minutes before I left La Push behind and another twenty before I passed Forks. Then I was on the highway heading for Port Angeles, after which I turned south towards Portland, Oregon. I didn't have a plan in my head as to where I was going. Each time I passed a route sign, I would pick a place from the three or four listed and head for it. Portland was two hundred and thirty miles from Port Angeles and I fixed on that, guessing I would make it by the end of the day.

My cellphone rang towards the end of the afternoon and I pulled it out of my pocket, grimacing. It wasn't a number I reconised, but I guessed it would only be a matter of time before a number I did know came up; Sam's or Seth's, Embry's or Quil's - or Bella's, God forbid. Not that I could imagine she would have any reason to call me. She was too busy living - if you could call it that - as one of the walking dead. I clenched my teeth, pressed the reject button, switched the phone off and then hurled it out of the window. I saw it bounce off the highway and into the grass running alongside the endless stretch of blacktop. Now I was free, I told myself. Part way between my old life and whatever lay ahead of me, but at last able to start afresh and go forward.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

I reached Portland just after nine o'clock and pulled into the parking lot of the first motel I came across. I sat in the truck for a few minutes, suddenly feeling lost and scared and a very long way from home. I almost started the engine again and headed back to La Push, but I forced myself to get out of the vehicle, grab the backpack with my personal items in from the seat beside me and go into the building. I paid for a room for one night, bought some chips and some pretzels from a snack machine in the lobby and made my way to the room. I would take a shower, go to bed and see what happened tomorrow. I comforted myself by thinking that if I still felt as unsure as I did now, I could always go back in the morning.

I slept like the dead and when I woke, I knew I wouldn't go back. The whole point of me leaving La Push was to find something new for myself; to leave the pain behind. Returning so soon would just put me back at square one.

With renewed resolve, I checked out of the motel and walked over to the diner across the street to eat breakfast - sausage, bacon, eggs, hash brown and beans with pancakes and maple syrup on the side and a cup of coffee. Exactly like Emily used to make for the pack on Sunday mornings before everything had gone to hell.

"Stop it," I said under my breath and shovelled a forkful of eggs into my mouth. I wasn't going to think about that.

I lingered over a second coffee, then went out to the truck and drove slowly out of the lot. I made my way back towards the freeway and looked up the at the sign, hesitating for a moment despite everything. I could simply drive off the shoulder onto the freeway and head for Sacramento, five hundred and eighty miles away, or filter up onto the bridge and loop back to join the northbound lanes for Port Angeles.

A sixteen wheeler appeared in my rearview mirror, honking loudly and I jammed my foot down onto the accelerator. I drove off the shoulder and zeroed the mile counter on the dash, wondering if I could make five hundred and eighty miles in one day.

With a stop for gas an hour down the road and another stop for lunch, I made it two-thirds of the way there by the late afternoon and found another motel. I completed the journey the next day and then continued on, day after day, one motel after another; Los Angeles, Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, Abilene. I was in the middle of Texas, twenty-five hundred miles from home and I was starting to run out of steam. I had gone far enough and decided it was time to slow down, look around, find somewhere to stay for a while.

I drove on just a little further until I came to Fort Worth and checked into a motel there for a week. I guessed it was as good a place as any to get my bearings. I'd read about the Stockyards and thought I might find the place interesting, although I quickly found I was less than keen on the number of tourists flooding the town.

I did something I'd never done in my life before - I explored. Having spent all my life in La Push, the only other towns I'd ever seen were Forks and Port Angeles. Now I walked around, window-shopped, ate spare ribs in a diner close to the rodeo arena and watched the real life cowboys riding up and down the street in their plaid shirts and Stetsons, almost expecting to see John Wayne at any moment.

When my week was up, I knew I wasn't going to make Fort Worth my home, but Texas itself appealed to me quite a bit. It was so completely different to what I was used to; the climate dry and hot instead of wet and cold, the people loud and outspoken, but friendly and keen to offer help. Even though I felt like an outsider, I wasn't treated like one.

The sun was blisteringly hot, even at the end of March and I wondered if they even had winter here in the south. It didn't really matter; temperature didn't affect shape-shifters. I would like to see a little more green around me, however.

I packed up and drove south-west, randomly picking a highway and following it a couple of hundred miles until a town came into view on the horizon, surrounded by small hills and the green of trees and grass and I felt almost as if I were sticking a pin in a map as I made up my mind to find somewhere to stay here and see whether I could get work.

'Welcome to Fredericksburg - Population 10,452.'

I passed the sign and continued towards the centre. The town was about three times the size of Forks and I pulled up outside a small guest house, its sign indicating it offered bed and breakfast. The establishment was run by an elderly couple who were only too happy to give me a history of their home town when I had checked in and paid for a week in advance.

"I'm looking for work, do you know if there's an auto repair shop or something like that around here?" I asked, assuming there must be at least two or three in a town this size.

"Well, we don't drive, ain't had a car in years," the old man told me. "You could try the gas station over on East Park. That way." He waved one hand in a general westerly direction. "Can't miss it; it's close to the baseball grounds."

"Right. Thanks. Is it far?"

"Fifteen minutes, maybe, if you're walking. 'Course, young fella like you'll probably make it in ten or less."

I glanced at my wristwatch. It was approaching three and I thought I may as well check it out straight away. I walked west and quickly spotted a sign indicating the direction to the baseball grounds. I found the gas station easily and walked over to the attendant who was sitting out front in a deckchair soaking up the sun, a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, apparently unconcerned by his proximity to the gas pumps. He looked like a redneck, the kind you saw in the movies, dressed in faded jeans with the knees ripped out, a plaid shirt with no sleeves and work boots with the laces missing. I wouldn't have been surprised to discover his name was Buddy or Hank. He stood up as I approached and ground the cigarette out under his boot.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm new around here," I said. "Looking for work. I'm a mechanic. Is there a repair shop around here?"

The guy raised one eyebrow and looked me up and down. He was long and lanky, tangled blond hair hanging around his shoulders and several days' growth of stubble on his face. I estimated his age to be around thirty.

"You after a job or a business?"

It hadn't really crossed my mind to set up on my own, but there was no reason why I couldn't. I still had a chunk of savings to keep me going until the house sold.

"Either one."

"Could be you've come to the right place. What's your name?"

"Jacob. Black," I said.

"Hank. Sneeder." I almost laughed as he stuck his hand out for me to shake. "Outta state?" he asked.

"Washington," I said. "The state, not DC."

"Long way from home." He narrowed his eyes and squinted at me. "Young, too. Run away, have you?"

"Something like that."

"Well, ain't for me to poke my nose in. That building over there..." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "...used to be a repair shop. Old guy, friend of mine, bit the dust last year and left it to me. Guess I could have hired someone in, but never got around to it. Maybe you could set up there, if you're any good."

"Yeah, I'm good," I said.

"I'll take your word for it."

I was surprised that he asked virtually no questions. For all he knew I could be a serial killer running from the law, but all he cared about was that I wouldn't do a shoddy job on any of his customer's vehicles and give him a bad reputation.

"I'll rent you the building," he said. "Hundred bucks a month."

"A hundred...that's _all_?" I gasped.

"Ain't doing nothing just sitting there, hundred bucks a month is a hundred I don't got now," he shrugged. "There's another shop - big expensive place - over on the other side of town. Folks miss the small guys that don't overcharge and do work they don't need."

"Well, I certainly wouldn't do that," I said.

"Good." He turned and walked into the gas station store. Assuming he meant for me to follow, I walked after him.

"Keys." Hank tossed a keyring with a metal Mack truck fob on it to me. "There's still a whole bunch of tools in there you can make use of if you want."

"Thanks!" I couldn't quite believe my luck. I pulled my wallet out quickly and counted out five twenty dollar bills. "Here's the first month's rent."

Hank folded the bills slowly and tucked them into the back pocket of his jeans, nodding briefly at me.

"I'll leave you to it." He plucked another beer from a nearby refrigerator and returned to his deckchair.

"Unbelievable," I said under my breath. I'd known the guy no more than five minutes and he'd rented me a workshop for virtually nothing. For the first time since I left La Push I felt a spark of positivity and I went to unlock the shop and check out the contents.

The previous owner had left a collection of tools any decent mechanic would envy, complete with ramps and a tyre machine. The place was filthy and clearly needed a good clean up, but other than that it was perfect. I decided to start on it the next morning. In the meantime I needed a phone and a place to live. I locked up again, told Hank I would see him the following day and then walked into town.

I passed City Auto Parts on the corner of East Park and Granite, not five minutes from my new business. I could use them to get my supplies from. Things just kept on getting better.

I found a Verizon store first and went in to buy a prepaid cellphone. I had suddenly remembered that in throwing away my old phone, I had also made it impossible for the realtor in Forks to contact me and I vowed to call them first thing in the morning to give them the new number.

My next task was finding somewhere to live. A real estate office was on the next block from the phone store and I walked in, realising I probably looked like some kind of homeless person who couldn't afford to rent anything they had on their books. I was dusty and in need of a shower, wearing cut-off jeans and a faded t-shirt with the sleeves torn out, revealing that damned wolf pack tattoo on my shoulder. I had to do something about that too, as soon as I got the chance.

"May I help you...Sir?" The young male assistant in his thousand dollar suit and silk tie sauntered over to me almost as if it were too much trouble for him.

"I'm looking for a house to rent," I said.

"I'm not sure we have anything that would suit you."

"How can you know that when I haven't said what I want?"

"Well..."

'Come on, Jacob, don't let yourself get wound up,' I thought to myself, as I felt a brief pulse of anger.

"I'm guessing you must have _something_ on your books up to around fifteen hundred a month, at least partially furnished if possible," I said casually.

"Oh! Well! Certainly!"

All of a sudden he was eager to help and invited me to take a seat at a desk. He turned his computer screen so that I could see it and began selecting properties, starting with small single storey houses in the new built part of the town, up on the hill I had driven past on the way in.

"I'd prefer something out of the town itself," I said.

"We have this one here, just came up for rent a week ago. Hein Road is about as far from the town centre as you can get, it's still a dirt road, but the house is decent. Furnished cabin style, two bedrooms, full bathroom and half bath, well equipped kitchen and a large living room, two acres of land including this wooded area here..."

"How much?" I interrupted.

"Nine ninety-five a month, but there's a condition of a minimum rental of one year."

A year? My breath caught in my throat. What if I hated it? What if I wanted to go back home? What if...?

'Get a hold of yourself,' I thought. 'You wanted a new life. You already got a business premises. Are you really going to set it up, build up customers for a couple of months and then run away again? Maybe a year will be enough time to feel better, to forget, to move on.'

"How much do you need for a deposit?" I heard myself ask.

"One month's rent plus an extra five hundred."

"Uh..." I pulled out my wallet again. "I have eight hundred here." I counted it out, laid it on the desk and then handed over my driver's licence and social security card. "Could you sort out whatever I need to sign while I get the rest?"

"Of course, Sir." He was a little quicker to call me 'Sir' now he had a wad of my money. I got to my feet.

"Will you direct me to an ATM?"

"Just across the street on the next block to the left."

"Thanks."

An hour later I was on the way back to the guest house, the rental contract in my pocket which started in five days' time. I just had to call back into the office and collect the keys on that day. I grabbed a burger from a fast food store on the way and ate as I walked, then went to my room to charge up the new cellphone and dig out the letter from the realtor in Forks to find the telephone number.

I saved the one number in the cell and then sat staring at it. I had no other contacts to put in there and for the first time since I started driving three weeks before, I felt completely lost. The pack's numbers and everyone else I knew had all been stored in my old phone; I'd never memorised them and most people didn't use landlines any more so I couldn't just look them up in the yellow pages. I wouldn't even be able to call Sam if I wanted to.

Panic filled me and I sat on the bed in my room, thinking about my old life, wondering if I had done the right thing, wishing there was even one person I could call who would tell me things would be ok, that I would make it on my own in this strange town which was about as far away from La Push as I could get. All I could do was tell it to myself.

I _would_ be ok. I had a place to work, a home and I would get to know people here, make new friends, maybe even find a girlfriend. No, maybe not that. Not yet anyway. Later, when I no longer felt as if I'd been stabbed in the heart when I thought about Bella.

I went to take a shower and then stretched out on the bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking some more. Eventually I must have fallen asleep and I opened my eyes hours later as daylight filtered in through the window. I turned my head to look out and saw nothing but bright blue sky. For the first time in a very long time, I found myself smiling. Today would be the first day of my new life.


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

I showered and ate breakfast downstairs in the dining room, then returned to my room again for a while. I called the realtor in Forks to give them my new number and discovered they had been trying to reach me for a week to tell me an offer had been made on the house.

"That was quick," I said. "How much?"

"Just twenty-five hundred below the asking price."

"Anyone else interested?"

"Not as yet. We can hold out for the full price if you wish; the property is easily worth it."

"No, accept it," I said quickly. My savings weren't going to last forever and with a thousand dollars a month to find for my house and the costs I would incur getting the business going, I would only last three months if I didn't get a good number of customers fast.

I was advised that once the sale went through, I would receive documents confirming it along with a banker's draft.

"Could I take your address?" I was asked.

"Um...shit...I'm sorry...hold on, please." I reached for the paperwork on the bed table which I'd got the day before for the rented house.

"2085 Hein Road, Fredericksburg, Texas," I recited.

"Texas!" The guy sounded surprised.

"Yeah. Look, you're not going to give that address out to anyone, are you, or the phone number?" I said. If the buyer of the house turned out to be someone who knew me, I could imagine it getting around and then Sam turning up on my doorstep one day.

"Of course not, Mr Black, it's completely confidential," he confirmed.

"Oh. Good."

I ended the call and then set off for my new work premises, deciding to put in some hours that day cleaning up. Hank was already ensconced in his deckchair accompanied by beer, cigarette and a magazine when I got there.

"Morning," I said as I passed the pumps and headed for the workshop. He nodded and saluted me with his beer.

I worked hard all day, not even breaking for lunch and succeeded in getting rid of all the dirt and garbage from the workshop, sorting out and cleaning up the tools and repairing a small hole in the roof.

"Hell, you sure know how to work," Hank commented when I locked up at the end of the day. I didn't think I'd really moved mountains, but since he spent all day lazing in the sun, occasionally sauntering over to the pumps to despatch some gas, I supposed it must have looked like I'd done a lot to him.

The next day I found a sign maker and instructed them to make up and fit a sign for me on the front of the workshop. I called it simply, 'Black's Auto Repairs' and then spent a few hours registering the business and visiting a local newspaper office to run an advertisement, offering servicing, general repairs, restoration and engine rebuilds and including my new cellphone number. Then I called in at an insurance office to insure the building and equipment and cover the liabilities in case I blew up someone's car or anything else equally unlikely. Finally I went to a print shop and ordered some receipt books with the business name on them. I was sure I would have forgotten something important, but at that moment I couldn't think of anything else.

I spent the weekend exploring Fredericksburg and the immediate area surrounding it and then first thing Monday I went into the real estate office to collect the keys to the house. It barely took two hours to move my meagre belongings from the guest house to the cabin.

When I arrived I immediately liked the look of the place. I didn't think the photograph I'd seen really did it justice. It was as described - a cabin style house with a wide porch running right along the front and a couple of acres of wild overgrown land surrounding it, which bordered a small but thick woodland area.

The house itself had been left furnished complete with new sets of bedding in the two bedrooms, cupboards full of pots and pans and crockery in the kitchen and even towels in the bathroom cupboard. The living room boasted a huge flat screen television with DVD player and a music centre. It was almost as if the owners had just walked out one day and left everything. The only thing missing was clothing and food.

I put my own clothes away, found places for my music and books and other things and emptied my backpack of personal items into the bathroom cupboard. Then I poured myself a glass of water and went to sit out on the porch in the sun for a while.

Everything was going right for me; I couldn't have done better if I'd tried, but all I could think about was Dad, buried so far away and my friends who I had done my best to avoid for the past year and suddenly longed for.

"Have I done the right thing?" I said aloud.

'You know what's best for you, in your heart.' Dad's voice was in my head. He had always supported me in everything, even when I ran away for six months and left him alone. I guessed he was right. I couldn't have stayed in La Push with all the unhappy memories it held for me. I supposed it would just take me some time to really put it behind me and to call this place home.

My cellphone rang and I pulled it out of my pocket. Not the real estate office or the one in Forks, so it had to be something to do with the ad.

"Hello? Jacob Black," I said.

"Just seen your ad; I'm looking to get a pickup serviced this week. What do you charge?"

"Um..." Shit, why hadn't I done any research? I would have charged about two hundred dollars in La Push, for changing oil and filters and spark plugs and so on. I didn't want to push my luck on the first day though.

"A hundred and seventy-five dollars," I said.

"Are you _serious?"_ the voice on the other end of the line responded.

"Yes..." I said doubtfully, wondering exactly how cheap things were here.

"Introductory offer, is it?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Never mind. Can you do it tomorrow?"

"Sure. Any time you like," I said. "What model truck do you have?"

"A ninety-nine Ram 1500. My name's Deakins. I'll drop it by around ten if that suits."

"Sure, Mr Deakins, that's fine."

"Thanks."

He hung up and I stared at the phone in amazement. Apparently I was a little too cheap. I went into the house and dug out the Yellow Pages I had seen in one of the cabinets in the living room, looking through for the auto shop across town Hank had mentioned. There was only the one; its advertisement took up an entire page. I called the number on the ad.

"Good morning, Gillespie County Autos?" a female voice answered. They had a secretary.

"Hi, a friend of mine's looking to get a pickup truck serviced; could you give me a price, please?" I said.

"Yes, Sir, that'll be three hundred and twenty-nine dollars including the filters."

"Ok, thanks, I'll get back to you." I hung up. Ok, so two hundred wasn't too much. Mr Deakins was getting a discount for being my first customer.

I headed over to City Auto Parts next to collect the items needed for the service. The lot set me back a hundred and forty-five dollars, but of course I had to pay the list price. I handed over cash and then asked to see the manager. I might as well see if they would let me have an account while I was at it.

The manager was happy to spare some time for me and took me to his office. He introduced himself as Herbert Warren and as soon as I mentioned I was setting up beside the gas station, he grinned.

"Hank Sneeder's place? It's about time someone took that over. Between you and me, Gillespie's are cheating folks just lately; actually they always have. Since the old man at Sneeder's died, their prices have gone up even more. I get my old bus serviced out of town.

"You're from out of state," he added. "North-west?"

"Yes, Washington," I said.

"Just fancied a change of scene, did you?"

"Something like that."

"I'm from up that way myself; Portland. Long time ago, mind," he said thoughtfully. "So, what are you after from me?"

"An account," I said. "I don't expect to get one right away, but maybe you could consider it when I'm properly established."

"Well..." He scratched his chin. "I'd certainly be willing to consider it. I don't know what it's like where you come from, but around here we do a fair bit of back-scratching. For instance, I need some new tyres on my MPV. Only the fitting, you understand. If you can spare the time to put them on, then I might be able to see my way to offering you a wholesale account, with, say a five hundred dollar limit to start. What do you say?"

Once again, I was amazed by the difference between the people here and the way things were done, compared to what it was like in Forks.

"I'd say you should drop your MPV around any time it suits you," I said with a grin.

"I'll do that."

The following morning I had my first two jobs. Mr Deakins brought his Ram in for its service at ten as promised and I told him he could collect it any time after one o'clock. Herbert Warren arrived an hour later in his MPV, handed me the keys and pointed out that the new tyres he wanted fitting were in the back of the car. He would be back at five to collect it.

"How's it going, Herb?" Hank called out from his deckchair as the man walked away.

"Good, Hank; yourself?"

I grinned to myself and continued with the service. Both jobs were finished by one-thirty and I stopped for a late lunch and took the opportunity to call the print shop. My receipt books were ready and Hank offered to pick them up for me as long as I manned the gas pumps for him. He needed to run into town on some other errand.

When he returned I wrote out a receipt for Mr Deakins and just minutes later, he arrived to collect the truck and paid cash.

"You can be sure I'll be back when I need any other jobs doing," he said.

By the end of the week, I had serviced six vehicles, fitted four sets of tyres, replaced a leaking radiator and fixed an electrical fault on an ancient car. All the customers seemed happy, grumbled about Gillespie's and promised to return and recommend me to their friends. So far it was working out and as I closed up on Friday and drove home, I realised that the first week was over and it hadn't seemed as hard as I expected. I wouldn't say I was happy - far from it - but I was getting used to things. Sometimes hours passed and I didn't think about home - La Push. It wasn't home any more, I reminded myself.

The worst times were the evenings. I would often eat out at a diner just so I didn't go home and sit brooding, but it was inescapable when I went to bed. I would lie awake, staring at the ceiling, listening to owls hooting and other creatures squeaking and so on outside my open window and sometimes I couldn't swallow the lump in my throat, or stop my tears spilling over. I was still heartbroken over Bella, still lost without Dad and still missing my friends. Even though I'd barely seen any of them except Sam and Emily in the last year, they had still been there, just minutes away if I wanted them.

I opened up the shop on Saturday morning, unsure whether I should or not. Hank was there, sprawling in his deckchair as usual.

"Opening on the weekend?" he said, raising one eyebrow.

"Maybe just for the morning."

"Keen, ain't you?"

I just grinned. It turned out that I had no customers and I closed up again at twelve and went into town looking for a tattooist. A number of people had commented on the wolf pack tattoo and I'd taken to wearing t-shirts with longer sleeves to cover it rather than having to repeatedly explain it was a tribal design I'd had done after too many beers and since regretted.

I was the first customer of the day for Fred-Ink and the guy running the place introduced himself as Billy. I flinched a little as I immediately thought of Dad. Everything reminded me of him. This Billy was about my height but a good hundred pounds heavier, most of the weight appearing to be around his midriff. Every visible inch of skin was covered in ink except for his face and he wore rings through his ears, nose, eyebrow and lip.

I explained I didn't want my existing tattoo covering up, which I doubted would work anyway unless I wanted a huge black circle on my shoulder, but that if he could surround it with something else, up onto the top of my shoulder and down my arm a little, that would be good.

He showed me pictures of a number of tribal type designs he'd done before, which would work well with what I already had and draw attention away from it.

"What is that, anyway?" he asked, peering at my shoulder. "Some kind of gang symbol?"

"Yes, in a way."

"Well, I don't have any bookings until five today, I can fit you in now if you want," he said. "It's a hundred bucks an hour for freehand work."

"Ok."

"I'll get the outline done and see how it's going. You'll probably have to come back to have the filling done. Once the swelling starts up it can distort the design if you carry on."

"Fine." I smiled to myself. I doubted I would have that problem.

About ninety-minutes later, Billy commented in surprise that there appeared to be no swelling at all and the least amount of bleeding he'd seen.

"You want me to carry on?"

"Sure."

It took four hours in all. It felt a little sore for about an hour afterwards, but that was all and another hour after that it was completely healed and looked as if it had been there for months.

On the way home I stopped at a grocery store to stock up on some food items and then drove back to the house. When I opened the door I found a letter on the mat - my first piece of mail.

I put the groceries in the kitchen and opened the envelope, discovering it was from the realtor in Forks. It included a copy of the contract of sale on the house and the banker's draft. I stared at the latter for a long moment. Of course I knew how much I was getting, but actually seeing the amount written there in front of me - one hundred and ninety-seven thousand dollars - it seemed like an impossible amount of money.

I grinned and opened out the contract, wondering if it would indicate who had actually bought the house. My eyes widened as I stared at the signature at the bottom and the papers fluttered from my hand to the floor. It was signed 'P. Lahote.'

My mouth fell open and my guts clenched. Paul bought my house? What the fuck? Why in hell would he want my house? How did he find the money? Who would give an eighteen-year-old tattooist a mortgage? I shivered as I felt a peculiar chill run down my back. It was almost as if he'd stepped on my grave - or Dad's grave.

"Get a hold of yourself, Jacob, what does it matter?" I muttered aloud. "It's not like I'm intending to go back there any time soon. And I really need to stop talking to myself."

I picked the document up again and went into the living room to sit down. No amount of telling myself not to be stupid made a difference. I didn't feel comfortable about Paul living in my house. Somehow it felt kind of creepy, which was ridiculous. In a way we had been brothers; it wasn't as if we'd hated each other, we just didn't get along. But I still didn't like the thought of him living there, maybe sleeping in the room that had been mine, perhaps using my old workshop.

I opened a drawer in the nearby cabinet and shoved the paperwork into it. I wouldn't look at it again. There was no point in me even thinking about it. What did it really matter?


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

It took me a long time to start seeing Fredericksburg as home. My business flourished and I worked hard from eight until six every day with barely a break and started opening regularly on Saturdays too, until one o'clock. Once my customers knew I was available on the weekends I was always busy. Summer came and went and still I was just getting through one day at a time, not looking too far forward because I knew if I did, I'd get scared that things would never get any better.

Then suddenly one day towards the end of October I looked at myself in my bathroom mirror and realised something had changed. I stared at myself for a few minutes, surprised to see how long my hair had gotten again. I hadn't bothered cutting it since Dad's funeral and even though I had started having to pull it into a ponytail when I worked to keep it out of my face, I had been doing it absentmindedly. I studied the rest of my face, thinking I didn't look so much like a kid any more. I'd always looked younger than the rest of the pack even after we all phased.

I wondered what they were all doing now. Sam and Emily had always wanted children; Jared and Kim had got engaged not long before I left; even Leah had been happy at last. Then Bella came into my mind and I realised with some surprise that I hadn't thought about her in weeks and now when I did, there wasn't that crushing pain in my chest that had sucked the breath out of me the minute I woke up every day. I imagined her living in that house in the woods with the Cullens, her skin pale and cold and hard like theirs, feeding on the blood of animals and I found that I really didn't care any more. She found what made her happy and finally, after however long it had been now, I had moved on from it.

It was another week before I decided I ought to do something about making some friends, maybe even meeting a girl. Seven months in Fredericksburg and I didn't know anyone yet properly, except for Hank and his girlfriend, Tammy. They lived together and I'd gone over to their place a few times for dinner. Once they'd even tried to fix me up with a girl who was friends with Tammy's younger sister and I'd escaped as fast as I could after the meal, mortified to have been put in such a situation. When I saw Hank on Monday, much as I loathed talking about it, I had to give some kind of explanation.

"Don't do that to me again," I'd said.

"What?"

"Try fixing me up with someone."

He snorted cigarette smoke out of his nose. "What's wrong with you? Like being on your own, do you?"

"I loved somebody and she went off and married someone else, that's all," I said shortly.

"Still stuck in your head, is she?"

"Yeah."

"Sorry." Hank left me to get on with my work and never mentioned it again. I continued going to his place for dinner occasionally and he and Tammy never tried introducing me to another girl.

Now at last I actually wanted to meet someone and I hadn't the first clue how I would go about it. I couldn't see myself going to a bar and trying to pick up a girl and I didn't have other friends I could hang out with who would know them. I'd never gone on a date in my life and at almost nineteen years old, that was pretty pathetic when you thought about it. I considered it for a few more days, wondering if I should go to a bar after all, when I met someone completely by accident.

It was a Friday morning and for once I wasn't completely flat out with work. I had just finished servicing a truck and had stopped to get a coke from Hank when a brand new 4x4 pulled up in front of the shop with steam pouring out from under the hood. I put the coke down and headed towards it as the driver climbed out - a young girl; blonde, blue-eyed and curvy, dressed in tight jeans and a yellow shirt.

"Hey," she said, smiling somewhat sheepishly. "I think I killed my car. Could you take a look at it for me? My Daddy will go crazy."

"Don't worry, the radiator probably just ran dry, that's all," I said. "Let's take a look." I popped the hood and quickly discovered the radiator was virtually empty. I left it to cool down and checked the oil and brake fluid while I was at it. Both were low and I topped them up.

"How long have you worked here?" the girl asked me.

"Since about April."

"You work for Hank then?"

"No, I work for myself, I just rent the place from him."

"Oh, so you must be...Mr Black?"

"Jacob Black," I grinned.

"Jodie Stewart."

"I'd shake your hand, but I'm..." I showed her my palms, which were smudged with oil and grime. She laughed.

"So where are you from, Jacob Black? You're not local," she said.

"I guess my accent gives me away. I'm from Washington State," I told her.

"Long way from home then. What made you come to Texas?"

"It's a long story."

"Well, I guess I've nothing better to do until my car cools down."

I found myself chatting to her easily. I didn't go into much detail, but said my Dad died and I had wanted to leave all the memories behind. Then much to my surprise she told me her father owned Gillespie's and that he had given her the car for a graduation present.

"I didn't want them to fix it, he'd find out how useless I am. I don't want him to take it back," she giggled.

By the time she left, I realised two hours had passed and I had enjoyed every minute. Then I began kicking myself that I hadn't at least asked for her number.

"Friend of yours?" Hank called out from his deckchair after she had driven away.

"Maybe."

"You know she's the daughter of your competition."

"Yeah, I know."

He laughed. "Did you ask her out?"

"Not yet."

"You should."

I got the chance the very next day. Hank had already left and I was just closing the shop at one o'clock when Jodie's car pulled up by the door. She was wearing jeans again with a red sleeveless t-shirt, her hair tied back in a braid.

"Hey, Jacob."

"Hey. You almost missed me."

"No, I didn't, I have perfect timing."

I grinned at her. "How's your car?"

"Much better. So what are you doing now?"

"I was going to go home and just hang out."

'Ask her out,' I told myself. 'She came over here on purpose right when I'm closing up.'

"Do you fancy doing something this afternoon?" I asked. "Maybe go to the movie theatre?"

"Sure, that'd be good. There's a new movie out I really want to see actually, if you like the sound of it. 'Changeling', with Angelina Jolie."

She went on to tell me what it was about - a mystery thriller set in the 1920s. I didn't really care what it was about to be honest - at least I had a date with a pretty girl without really trying.

"I need to get a shower and a change of clothes first," I said. "If you don't mind stopping by my house on the way..."

"You have your own house?"

"Yes, I rent a place on Hein Road."

"Cool. Maybe I can just leave my car here and pick it up later."

"Ok." I was a little surprised she was happy to go to my house since she knew nothing about me, but then again I didn't know anything about girls.

She wandered around the living room while I took a quick shower and put on some clean clothes. When I emerged minutes later, she was looking at a photo of Dad I had standing beside the television. I had only recently dug it out and placed it there, now the pain of losing him was less.

"Is this your Dad?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"You didn't mention a Mom."

"She died in a car wreck when I was nine," I said, surprised that I felt comfortable being so open with her.

"I'm sorry. Were you close to your Dad?"

"Yeah, very, he was like my best friend."

"I wish mine was like that. I lost my Mom too, when I was too little to remember her. Dad thinks he can just keep me happy by buying me things all the time. Oh, well, it has its advantages. He doesn't care much what I get up to, so long as I don't embarrass him."

We chattered on as I drove back into town to the movie theatre and I bought tickets for the movie and popcorn and coke to share. Later I drove her back to the gas station to collect her car and we continued to get on like a house on fire, talking and laughing about the movie and a number of other things.

Somehow I hadn't expected it to be like this. I thought maybe I would have been shy or nervous or something, never having done any of this before, but I wasn't; not at all. I felt good with her and she was easy to talk to, frequently making me laugh. I kissed her goodbye before she got into her car, just a light caressing of lips without tongues and it was nice, but it didn't set off fireworks.

Suddenly all I could think about was Bella. I had kissed her properly that one time up on the mountain after I told her I didn't care whether I got killed in the battle or not. She had set me on fire, but maybe that was just because I'd already been in love with her for over a year by then and spent every waking moment longing to kiss her. Still, I couldn't stop myself comparing her and Jodie. Jodie was blonde where Bella was dark, rosy where Bella was pale, curvy where Bella was slim.

'Don't do that, for God's sake,' I thought to myself. 'It's early days. See how it goes.'

"Maybe we could do this again," I said. "Go out for a meal or something?"

"I'd love to," Jodie said at once.

I arranged to pick her up from her house at six o'clock the following evening and then drove home. As soon as I arrived, went in and threw myself onto the sofa, I began to have doubts. I liked Jodie, there was no doubt about that, but after a few weeks of not thinking about her, suddenly Bella was back in my mind. I wasn't longing for her, but I kept remembering how I had felt when I'd spent months with her building motorcycles after Edward left, thinking she would eventually fall for me too. It didn't hurt to think about it any more, but it made me wonder if I had just jumped at the first girl to show any interest in me. I told myself once more just to give it a chance and see what happened.

That's exactly what I did. I continued dating Jodie for the next couple of weeks, our kisses goodbye quickly developing into long sessions of heated kissing and cuddling, finishing with me going home to bed and jacking myself off thinking about her. I thought everything was going great and decided that the next weekend I would invite her back to the house and see how far she was willing to go with me.

I woke up on Friday morning and Jodie immediately popped into my mind and my stomach filled with butterflies. Grinning, I grabbed my cellphone to send her a text message. She always got up early to take her dog for a walk. Then just before I pressed 'send', I stopped myself and deleted the message. I put the phone down again and pulled the pillow on top of my head.

I panicked. That was the only way I could explain it. When I woke up she was the first thing I thought of and I'd been filled with excitement, just like I always was when I waited at Dad's house for Bella to arrive when we were working on those old motorcycles together. I would pace about, my heart hammering, waiting for her truck to appear.

What I was feeling now was a similar thing, just less intense and all I could think about was that if I carried on the way I was going, I'd end up head over heels with Jodie, and then what? She'd find someone else, someone she liked better, walk away from me and I'd have to go through the same shit all over again.

It might not be like that; she might fall for me too. But if she didn't...I didn't even want to think about feeling like that again. Maybe I just wasn't ready; maybe it hadn't been long enough after all. I was confused and a jumble of thoughts assaulted me until I began to get a headache. I threw the pillow across the room and sat up, scowling. Headache or not, I still had to go to work. It wasn't like I could call the boss and say I was sick; I _was _the boss.

I worried about it all day; I couldn't concentrate on work and when Hank came in to speak to me for a minute I almost leaped out of my skin. For about a second I considered confiding in him and then dismissed the idea. He would think I was insane.

Jodie arrived just before I closed up at six as we had planned to go out that evening and as Hank locked up and took off, I made my mind up about what I should do.

"Hey, Jacob!" Jodie slid out of her car and almost skipped over to me, beaming from ear to ear. She looked beautiful, wearing a short blue dress, her hair loose and curling around her shoulders. Damn.

"Hey." I shoved my hands into my pockets. This was going to be another first for me.

"Are you alright?" Jodie's smile faded.

"No, not really. I've something to say and you're probably not going to like it."

She frowned. "Can't you make tonight?"

"It's not that."

"You met someone else?" She chewed her lip and I immediately felt like a complete shit.

"No. But I've been thinking all day and I can't see you any more."

"What? Why? If there's no one else...did you just go off me or something?"

"It's not that."

"Then what is it?" Her hurt expression gave way to a scowl.

"I'm just not ready for this," I confessed. I would have to tell the truth. "I was in love with this girl back in Washington...I thought she loved me; she said she loved be; but there was another guy she wanted more."

Jodie's scowl vanished and much to my surprise, she looked sympathetic.

"You're scared you'll get hurt again?" she said softly.

"Yeah, I guess."

"I wouldn't do that, Jacob. I really like you. I'm not going to let you get close to me and then kick you in the teeth."

"I'm sorry. My head's a mess," I said. "I just don't want to do this. Not right now. I can't."

"Well, I guess there's nothing I can about that," Jodie said with a sigh. "I'm sorry you feel like that. I think we could have been good together; really good."

"I'm sure you're right," I said miserably. "I'm sure I'll regret this one day."

"I hope not, because if you do then this is a waste. But just in case, you have my number. I'm not going to leave here and go and throw myself into someone else's arms, if you change your mind."

She had taken it much better than I expected and I felt sad as I watched her drive away, but at the same time I was relieved. I knew if I had let it go on any longer, if I'd slept with her, she would have had me like a fish on a hook and I just couldn't put myself through it. Maybe in time, but not now.

I locked the shop, got into my truck and drove home. Strangely I felt lonely as I walked in, but I guessed it was something I was going to have to get used to for a while.


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

It was several days before I told Hank about Jodie. I knew he'd think I was out of my mind so I was reluctant to say anything, but when Luke Stewart turned up at the shop on Wednesday morning, I ended up having more explaining to do. I'd never actually been into Jodie's house and met him, but she had described him so I guessed it was him before he introduced himself.

The man climbed slowly out of his Mercedes and walked over. He wasn't a tall guy, but even with a suit on it was clear he was muscular. I was inside the shop working on a car and I straightened up as I saw him coming. He had a face like thunder and headed straight towards me, halting just a few feet away.

"Jacob Black, right?" he said.

"Yes?"

"Luke Stewart. Name mean anything to you?"

"I guess you must be Jodie's father," I said. "You run Gillespie's."

He gave me a thin smile and glanced around the workshop with a condescending look on his face, then stared back at me.

"What have you done to my girl?"

"Nothing. I..."

"When she comes home crying and spends a whole weekend in her room, seems to me like something's been done to her. Anyone hurts my girl, they hurt me, you understand?"

"Look, I'm sorry she's upset, but really, it's between me and her," I said, feeling a pang of guilt that Jodie was crying over me.

"Not any more, it isn't. What have you done? She says nothing, but she doesn't cry over nothing. Been messing with her, have you? Cheating, maybe?" He took a step forward.

"No, I haven't done a thing. We went out for two weeks and I ended it."

"Why? Something wrong with you?" he demanded.

"I'm not going into that," I said firmly. "Like I said, it's between me and her. I didn't do anything wrong and I have no intention of discussing it with you any further."

I could feel my temper rising and I wanted him to leave before I started to lose it. Unfortunately Luke Stewart had no intention of just leaving and actually threw a punch at me. I lifted my hand quickly just before it connected with my face and his fist hit my palm instead. He flinched visibly and snatched his hand back.

"What the hell?"

"Look, Mr Stewart, you really don't want to start a fight with me," I said quietly. "I would suggest you just leave it at that and get out of here."

To my surprise, he took a few steps backwards.

"You haven't heard the last of me!" he growled. "Little upstart. You'll remember me when this little two-bit operation you got here goes out of business!"

I didn't say anything, but I couldn't help being amused that he called me 'little' when I was a good six inches taller than him. He turned on his heel now, stalked back to his car and disappeared a moment later, tyres squealing. In a second, Hank appeared in the doorway.

"What was that?" he asked. "Upset his little girl, did you?"

"I broke up with her, that's all," I said with a sigh.

"Why? Got somebody else?"

"No, I just wasn't into it. Can we not do this now?"

"Fine," Hank shrugged. "Better watch out for old man Stewart, though."

"I can handle him."

"Yeah, that was clear, but you don't know him. He fights dirty, so watch your back."

He left me to it and when I did eventually tell him what happened with Jodie later in the day, I wasn't surprised that he thought I was completely insane and would regret it. It crossed my mind that if I had stayed with her, maybe a couple of years down the line I might have ended up with Luke Stewart as my father-in-law and that would have been much worse than the current situation.

So far I hadn't regretted ending it with Jodie. I missed her because she was pretty and fun and I liked being with her, but I was relieved not to have developing feelings that I knew would drive me crazy. I decided I would leave it a few months and then give dating another go; my feelings might change after more time went by.

I spent Christmas Day with Hank and Tammy. They took pity on me after I said I wouldn't be going to visit anyone in Washington and invited me for dinner. Tammy, her Mom and her sister did the cooking, while Hank and me entertained Tammy's Dad, three brothers, their wives and about a dozen kids. The house was like a zoo and Christmas dinner was eaten wherever anyone could find a place to sit - mine was a cushion on the floor. Despite the chaos, it was great fun and I left in the late evening, exhausted, but having really enjoyed myself.

In the New Year I resolved I was going to shake off my conviction that anyone I dared spend time with would hurt me and make more effort to date and find new friends, but by the end of February I was still single and lonely. For the first time since I left La Push I actually considered getting in touch with some of my old friends. Although I didn't have their numbers, Sam, Jared and Paul all ran their own businesses and those would be listed. I had conveniently forgotten that point a year ago.

I dismissed the idea quickly, concerned that after the way I left, cutting them all out of my life and disappearing, they might not think so well of me as they once had done. However, there was one way I could bring them closer to me without actually speaking to them or going anywhere near La Push. It was something I hadn't even thought about since Dad died and now suddenly had a surprising urge to do.

It was a Tuesday evening and had been dark for hours. There was a full moon, but I doubted I would run into anyone. Texans liked to hunt, but there was nothing worth wasting the bullets on at this time of year and my house was far enough from any others for me to be seen.

I thought about it for a couple more hours, trying to tell myself I was being an idiot, but the excitement I felt at the thought of phasing wouldn't go away. I remembered how free I was from everything when in wolf form, how the pack had run together, connected by telepathy, although that part hadn't always been a good thing. The Sam, Leah and Emily triangle had caused us all to suffer and I knew my constant moping over Bella had exasperated them all after they got over teasing me about it.

I grinned now as I thought about them and got up from the sofa. What could it hurt? No one was going to know. I turned the house lights off, removed my clothes, opened my rear door and stepped outside. The only thing behind my house was grass and shrubs, my boundary fence and then trees.

I wondered if I could still do it. How long had it been? Two years. I'd been a large russet coloured wolf. Heat welled up in me and I almost rolled forward, landing on the ground on my hands...paws. Yes, I could still do it and it had happened just as fast as it always had. My fur was somewhat shaggy, in line with my human hair which was past my shoulders again now, but other than that it was all just the same.

I bounded forward, crossing my land in just a few strides, sprang over the fence and into the woods. I scampered along, following a narrow path between the trees, occasionally leaping over a fallen tree or a bush, my tongue hanging out of my mouth and my tail waving behind me. I lost track of time, eventually slowing to a walk and just exploring, my piercing wolf's eyes seeing the way easily in the dim light. The one thing I didn't see was a truck parked up on the far side of the wooded area at the edge of a narrow dirt road.

I turned and ran along the treeline and just a minute later I was caught in a blinding bright light. I froze momentarily and then felt the impact and burning sensation in my left shoulder almost before I heard the gunshot. I stumbled forward, then threw myself sideways quickly out of the light and into a clump of bushes a second before I phased back.

"Shit! Oh, shit!" I hissed under my breath, clutching myself. Blood oozed through my fingers and it hurt like hell. "You dickhead, Jacob!"

I peered out in the direction the shot had come from and saw the truck with lights mounted on the roof and a separate smaller beam bobbing around as if it were someone carrying a flashlight. I had to get out of there and fast. Keeping low, trying to ignore the pain I was in, I hurried back the way I had come, flinching every so often when my bare feet landed on sharp stones or twigs. What the hell had I been thinking? This wasn't La Push. I could have been killed.

I made it to the house and slipped inside quickly, then ran to the bathroom, switching on a couple of lights as I went. My shoulder felt like it was on fire and when I looked in the mirror it appeared that a furrow had been gouged through the flesh, made by the path of the bullet which mercifully had passed straight through.

"Fuck!" I muttered, flinching as I pressed a towel to the wound to stem the bleeding. I held it tight for a couple of minutes and then removed the cloth. It was still bleeding freely and I grabbed a fresh towel and tore a strip off it, then tied it around the wound. The bleeding eased a little, but the pain didn't and the bathroom was a mess. My doorbell rang suddenly.

"Oh, God," I groaned.

Who was at my door at this time of night? It must be somewhere between ten and eleven. I grabbed my bathrobe, which luckily was black, and pulled it on, quickly rinsed the blood off my hands and made my way to the front door. At least the caller wasn't at the rear door, where there was a pile of my clothes right inside it and a bloody hand print on the wall. I pulled the door open slowly, trying not to grimace. A man of around fifty stood on the porch, a rifle in one hand.

"Yes?" I said, hoping I didn't look as scared as I felt.

"You live here?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Thought I better warn you, I just shot what looked like a wolf in the trees behind your house. Ain't seen wolves around here in my life time, it maybe escaped from somewhere. Seemed like it was red, so could have been 'specially bred or something. Folks keep all kinds of animals as pets; God only knows why. I only winged it I think, so you better watch yourself when you go out in case it's wandering about out there wounded."

"Ok. Thanks. I'll be careful," I said.

"Ain't from around these parts, are you?" he went on.

"No, why?"

"You don't seem surprised to hear there's a wolf in the woods."

"Oh. Yeah. Well, I'm from Washington State, they're not that unusual up there," I said. "People don't usually keep them as pets, but they sometimes come wandering down from the Rockies."

The man nodded. "Right, well I'll get back out there. I'll keep looking for it, but I guess it'll be long gone by now, if it ain't curled up and died somewhere."

He turned and walked off and I closed the door, leaned on it and then slithered down it until I was sitting on the floor. My heart was hammering and blood was running down my arm and soaking into the cuff of the bathrobe. I couldn't believe I'd been so careless. If the bullet had hit me somewhere else, like my head or back legs, I probably wouldn't have been able to run away. Then that hunter would have found a naked guy lying in the woods with a bullet wound after he shot a wolf. Pretty hard to explain.

I went back to the bathroom, took off the robe and untied the towel again, replacing it with another strip and making more effort to actually cover the wound. I tied it tightly and then quickly cleaned up the mess on the wall and the floor where blood had dripped. By the time I had finished, the pain in my shoulder had lessened and no more blood had soaked through the makeshift bandage.

I barely slept that night, stupidly convincing myself that I was going to be found out. I knew it wasn't possible, but still I worried about it. By the time I got out of bed I was exhausted, but at least the wound had healed. When I removed the bandage there was only a pale scar as evidence of the night's events.

Wednesday passed without a mention of a wolf being spotted in Fredericksburg, but when I arrived at work on Thursday morning I found Hank already there reading a newspaper, something he didn't do often.

"Hey, Jake! You heard about this wolf?"

"What wolf?" My heart stopped for a couple of beats.

"Says here some fella out hunting shot a wolf the other night. A red one."

'Oh, shit,' I thought. 'It was in the paper?'

"Oh...yeah...a guy called at my house Tuesday night and mentioned it," I said, trying to sound casual. "He said he'd shot what he thought was a wolf, but not killed it and I should watch myself when I went out." I shrugged. "I didn't think anything of it; you often used to see wolves where I come from."

"Well, they don't generally turn up in Texas," Hank said. "This article says they think it must have been someone's pet or escaped from a zoo or something."

"Yeah, maybe."

"Have you got a gun?"

"What? No," I said, surprised.

"Well, maybe you should get one. Just in case it comes back."

"Yes, I'll think about it," I said and turned away to go to the workshop. Once again my heart was pounding with nervousness and I had to try convincing myself all over again that there was no way this would come back to me. It was my imagination running away with me.

It was the next afternoon when it did come back to me. One of my customers had towed a dead car in around three o'clock and told me he thought the engine blew up. He would leave it with me and asked that I give him a call before the weekend to let him know whether it was fixable. He would rather not scrap it unless he absolutely had to. I finished my current job and then went to check out the 'blown up' engine.

I lifted the hood and bent over to look for the problem. Anyone with partial sight could have spotted it in a second - the block was cracked. I doubted the guy would think the car was worth it, but I would call him anyway to give him an estimate for stripping down and rebuilding with a new block and advise him that after the stripping down I may well find other components in need of replacement. I decided to check for other problems while I was at it and leaned down to look at the radiator.

A car pulled up outside and I looked up. It wasn't often customers turned up this late on Fridays. However, it was just someone wanting gas and I saw Hank haul himself out of his deckchair to attend to them.

It was only a few minutes before I heard someone else arrive. Hank and his customer were in the gas station store and the vehicle stopped behind me. The driver got out and slammed the door and when the sound of boots headed towards me, I guessed it wasn't someone else for gas after all.

"I'll be right with you," I called out. I was still under the hood of the dead car, having just found a split in one of the hoses. Just a couple more things to check.

"Take your time."

Shit. I would know that voice anywhere. Stunned, I abandoned what I was doing, straightened up and spun around to face Paul.


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

"How...how did you find me?" I stammered.

"Don't you read the news?"

"Yes, the local news."

That damned wolf story must have spread further than just the local newspaper. I knew I was scowling, but it was the shock more than anything else. He was the last person I expected to see; if anyone from La Push managed to track me down I would have expected Sam or maybe Jared, but after a year I had doubted even they would ever find me.

"I didn't really expect you to be glad to see me," he said now with a wry smile.

"Sorry. I'm just surprised."

I grabbed a rag to wipe my hands and reached out to shake his. It occurred to me that if it had been Sam or Jared or in fact any of the others, we probably would have grabbed each other in a bear hug. I hardly knew what to say to Paul.

"What were you saying about the news?" I asked him.

"Local news usually ends up on the internet pretty quickly and you can be sure Sam's going to see anything that might tell him where you are. Red wolves became extinct about twenty years ago. They've been bred in captivity since, but not in Texas so that news article was a pretty big clue. Sam didn't just forget you existed, you know. None of us did."

"Oh, shit," I muttered.

"You got shot?" Paul went on.

"Yeah. Just a flesh wound."

"You're ok, though?"

"Yeah."

"What were you doing pha...?"

He fell silent as Hank's lazy footsteps could be heard heading towards the workshop and I bit my lip, unable to think of anything to say at that moment.

"I'm about to close up," Hank said. "Want anything out of the store?"

"No, thanks, I'm leaving too in a minute."

"Who's this?" Hank asked now, glancing at Paul.

"Hank, this is Paul." I wondered how to explain his sudden appearance. "My brother," I added.

I guessed we would look fairly similar to him - both Native, brown eyed, muscular and tattooed. Now I had gotten over the shock of his arrival, I noticed that Paul had a full sleeve done on his left arm although there was nothing but the wolf pack symbol on his right.

"Good to meet you." Hank swapped his ever-burning cigarette to his left hand and held his right out to shake Paul's.

"You too," Paul nodded.

"Thought you didn't have family," Hank said to me.

"We...uh...didn't get on," I told him, feeling my face heating up and hoping neither of them noticed.

"Well, I hope you can mend some bridges."

Hank took himself off again, locked the store, got in his truck and drove off. I backed away from Paul who was looking amused, and pulled out my cellphone.

"I have to make a call," I said, looking up the number for the customer with the dead car. Once that was done I could lock up. And talk to Paul. My mouth went dry and I filled up with nervousness. What would I say to someone I hadn't really talked to in two years? Even before that we never really talked, not properly.

The car's owner advised quickly that he would rather I rebuild his engine and do whatever else was necessary than him have to buy a new vehicle, which would certainly cost him much more. I told him the price for the rebuild without extras and agreed to start work on it on Monday.

"Let's get out of here," I said to Paul.

I didn't particularly want to take him to my house, but we could hardly stand there talking at the shop. Besides, if he could find my place of work, I guessed he could soon find my house too without me having to lead him to it. I locked up and walked over to my truck, eyeing the rental car Paul had arrived in.

"You better follow me," I said.

I drove back to the house, my mind whirling during the few minutes it took to get there. Why on earth did Paul come looking for me? If Sam thought the wolf in the news was me, why didn't he come himself? The arrival of the contract of sale on my house popped into my head and I wondered if Paul was still living there. I parked up on my drive and unlocked the door just as he pulled in behind me. He followed me inside and he was the first to speak.

"Why did you come so far? Texas, Jake? I mean, it's virtually the other side of the world."

"I just drove until I felt like I wanted to stop," I said. The last thing I wanted to talk about was me leaving La Push.

"Sam tried calling you a few times a couple of months after you left; you switched your phone off."

"I lost it. What are you doing here, Paul?"

"Sam sent me after he saw that news article. He was worried about you after he realised you must have phased, especially since it said you were shot."

"So why didn't Sam come himself?"

"Emily's pregnant - eight months. He didn't want to leave her and Jared's getting married next week so it fell to me."

"Sorry to put you out," I grunted. I was still unnerved by his sudden appearance.

"You think I wouldn't want to see you?"

"I don't know. How did you get here so fast?" Despite the rental car, my mind was in too much of a turmoil to realise that he must have flown to Texas.

"I flew from Seattle to Austin and rented a car at the airport. It was about a ninety minute drive from there."

"Yeah, of course." I realised I hadn't even offered him a drink or anything and we were still standing in my hallway. "Do you want coffee? Or a beer or something?"

"Coffee, thanks. I could do with the caffeine after the journey."

I nodded and walked into the kitchen, filling the kettle and automatically dumping coffee into two mugs, adding sugar to his. Somehow I had remembered how he drank his coffee. He leaned against one of the kitchen counters and watched.

"How did you find out where I was? I mean, when you got here?" I asked.

"It wasn't that difficult. I figured you'd be doing something like fixing cars. I went into this auto shop on the other side of town...Gillespie's?"

I groaned.

"You have a fight with them or something? The guy looked like he was about to spit feathers when I mentioned your name."

"It's a long story. Never mind."

Paul shrugged. "He didn't help any, but I called in at a diner and asked around. Someone mentioned Black's Auto Repairs - it couldn't be anyone else really."

I nodded. The house thing was still bugging me.

"Why did you buy my house?" I blurted out.

"I needed somewhere to live. I couldn't stay with my Dad forever."

"Right."

"What, you think I'm stalking you or something?" he said with a grin.

"No, I just...where did you find the money?"

"You obviously forgot my Dad's loaded after he sold the shares he had in that software company. He gave me the deposit and guaranteed the mortgage."

"Oh. Sure."

"Looks like you did well for yourself here," Paul commented. "Your own business."

"I was pretty lucky. The guy you met, Hank - he rented me the workshop for next to nothing on my first day here. I'm doing pretty well."

"That's good," he nodded. He reached out to take the mug of coffee I held out, sipped it and grimaced. "You still make it too strong."

I grinned despite my discomfort and found myself wondering if we had really never got on. Somehow he seemed different; or maybe I was different.

"How's your business going?" I asked.

"Good. Word gets around. I get people coming from Port Angeles and all over."

"You must be good," I said.

"I like to think so." He held his left arm out towards me. "The dragon at the bottom there is my work."

"You tattooed your_self_? Jeez. It's pretty good."

Paul laughed. "You have to practise on yourself before you're let loose on the customers when you're learning. I've got a really shit tiger on my ankle that I need to redo." He glanced at my arm. "When did you get that done?"

"Soon after I got here. The customers kept asking about the wolf pack symbol."

"Did you ever think about us?" He took another sip of the coffee, peered at me over the rim of the mug and raised his eyebrows.

"Of course I did; I didn't just leave town and forget. Much as I tried to."

"It must have been hard after Billy died. Most people would have wanted their friends around."

"Yeah, well leaving was the only way I could get over everything. I didn't want the memories around me."

"Like Bella."

"Yeah."

"Still think about her?"

"Not much. Finally I got over it."

I looked down at my own mug of coffee in my hand and frowned. I doubted I'd ever had a conversation like this with Paul in my life. I didn't even feel awkward any more and the most surprising thing about it was that I realised I was glad to see him.

"Did you meet anyone here?" he asked me. "I mean, like girls?"

"Huh," I snorted. "Yeah, one. You met her Dad."

"Gillespie?"

"His name's Stewart, but yeah."

"So that's why he doesn't like you," grinned Paul. "What did you do to Daddy's little girl? Get her pregnant?"

"No!" I felt myself going red. Damnit, why did I have to blush? "We were only dating a couple of weeks."

"That's long enough."

"Fuck off. I broke up with her, she was upset and her Dad came over here giving me earache, making threats about my business. Nothing ever came of it though. A couple of my regulars mentioned he'd been bad-mouthing me, but most people take no notice. He's not popular - he overcharges like you wouldn't believe."

Paul laughed. "You know, you're really different."

"You mean not moping around wishing the world would end?" I joked, surprising myself again.

"It's more than that. Everyone thought you were crazy just packing up and leaving, but it seems like it did you good."

"It took a long time."

"Do you think you'll ever come back?"

"I don't know. It's been a year. Things are working out here, I'm not sure I'd want to give it up."

"You could at least visit. Everyone misses you." His brows drew together in a frown and for a moment he looked sad, almost like the last time I'd seen him when I left the cemetery.

"Maybe." Even though I'd started to miss the pack, I hadn't considered even a visit to La Push. Somehow I'd thought they would have all moved on without me; that they wouldn't really want to see me. Knowing that I was still missed made me wonder if one day I could go back. It would be great to see Sam and Embry and Quil and Seth and the others.

"What made you phase?" Paul asked suddenly. "Something made you mad?"

"No, nothing like that. I suppose I just felt like it; sometimes I was more comfortable in fur than my own skin." I didn't feel like admitting I had missed the pack and thought it might bring me closer to them. "I won't be repeating it if I'm going to get shot at."

"Well, like I said, you could visit. No one's going to shoot at you where we used to run."

"Just drop it, Paul," I said quickly. I sounded snappier than I intended. "I'm not ready to go back. Not even for a visit."

"I'm sorry." He put his half empty mug down on the counter with a sigh. "Look, I should probably get out of your hair. I need to find a place to stay tonight and get something to eat. Is there a good motel around? I passed a Super 8 on the way in."

"Super 8's about as expensive as you can get," I said. "There's a guest house run by this old couple - I stayed there for a week when I first arrived."

What was I thinking? Was I seriously going to send him off to stay in a motel after he travelled twenty-five hundred miles to find out if I was ok? Maybe I would have a year ago. The minor irritation I felt over what seemed like him pressing me to go back to La Push disappeared quickly.

"That's stupid, you can stay here," I said. "I got a guest room. I can call out for pizza or something."

"Thanks, Jacob."

He seemed surprised and his eyes lit up as he smiled at me. I couldn't ever remember him calling me Jacob. It had always been Jake, or something mildly insulting such as 'you jerk'. I stared at him, wondering what I had missed. There was something, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

'Don't be stupid,' I thought to myself. 'It's just because you're not fighting.'

I pulled my cellphone out again. "What kind of pizza do you like?"

"Any. Something with meat on it. There's a new pizzeria opened up in Forks close to my store; they do one with chicken, mushroom and garlic and call it the Vampire Killer."

I snorted with laughter. "I can probably get something like that."

I dialled the pizza store's number from memory and ordered a fully loaded meat pizza and a build-your-own with chicken, mushroom and garlic. I added a side order of garlic bread and was advised the delivery would be around forty minutes.

Paul went out to the rental car to fetch his luggage - just a holdall enough for a couple of days, I noticed. I directed him to the guest room and stood outside the door as he dumped the bag on the bed, unzipped it and pulled out a clean shirt.

"I could do with a freshen up," he said.

"Bathroom's to the left."

He was standing with his back to me and I found myself staring as he peeled his t-shirt off over his head. A large tattoo spread out between his shoulder blades and part way down his back - eight wolves' heads, clearly representing the pack. A black one in the middle for Sam, lips pulled back from its teeth; the other seven surrounding it - brown for Jared and Quil, dark grey for Paul, russet for me, lighter greys for Embry and Leah and sandy and black for Seth.

"Wow," I said before I could stop myself.

Paul turned around, grinning. "Admiring the tattoo or me?"

"What?"

"I'm joking. I had it done about a year ago. Jared has a similar thing, but it's just a brown wolf and a girl for him and Kim."

"You could have had a grey wolf and a girl," I said.

"What girl? There's never going to be a girl, Jacob; I'm gay. I thought everybody knew that by now." He walked past me into the bathroom and closed the door.

My mouth fell open. Paul was _gay?_ If everybody knew, why didn't I? Was I really that blind, or was it just that for the last couple of years in La Push I had been so wrapped up in my own misery that I didn't notice? I tried to remember what he had been like, if anything could have given it away, but I couldn't think of a single thing. He had never been seen with anyone, that was for sure. Even when we were all phased, his thoughts hadn't given it away. In fact come to think of it, it was almost like he didn't think. A jumble of thoughts always came out of the others - unhappy confusion from Sam about Leah and Emily, excitement at being a wolf from Quil and Seth, hurt and bitterness from Leah and so on. From Paul there was nothing. It was like looking at a blank canvas. He never let anything out, unless it was relevant to the pack, such as 'watch out behind you' during battle or something like that. If everybody knew about him, why had he been so careful to hide his thoughts? Unless...he liked one of the pack and didn't want them to know?

The bathroom door opened again and made me jump.

"Was it really that much of a shock?" Paul asked. "Look, I can still go to a motel..."

"No, don't be stupid," I said at once, pulling myself together. "I was just surprised. How long have you known?"

"That I liked guys? Since puberty."

"But if everyone else knew..."

"You ran away for six months, remember?" he said. "It came out not long after you were gone. Everybody was at Sam's and he and Jared started telling me it was about time I quit being so foul-tempered because I'd frighten the girls off. I just joked about it for a while, but they wouldn't drop it, so I blurted it out. 'Guys, I'm gay, alright?' Sam's mouth hung open further than yours, believe me. By the time you came back, everyone had gotten used to it so it didn't keep coming up in conversation and with your Dad sick, you were never around anyway."

"What about your Dad?" I asked, immediately thinking about what my own Dad's reaction would have been to that kind of news. He would probably have said something along the lines that he still loved me and I should do what made me happy. I smiled slightly.

"He was cool. I thought he'd probably knock my head off, but it turned out one of his buddies back in Tacoma was gay so he didn't really care."

"Did you ever meet anyone?"

He dropped his eyes away from mine. "Not really. A couple of casual things with guys in Forks. I suppose I had the same problem as you - wanting someone I couldn't have. You know, I could go for a beer after all."

"Sure." I turned away and went to the refrigerator.

Paul wanted someone he couldn't have? He blocked his thoughts from the pack. So he did have feelings for one of them - one of _us_.

My thoughts whirled. He had always got on with everyone else, always been relaxed, fooled about, and yet with me he avoided me or squabbled. I remembered an incident of cliff diving before I even phased. I had joined in and when I walked up the beach he had gone crazy, panicked almost. 'What the fuck are you doing? You could have been killed! You stupid jerk!'

When I left the cemetery, the look on his face, in his eyes - misery. The minute I was gone he bought my house. And now he was here, so different from the way he had always been with me now it was just the two of us, making jokes about whether I was checking out him or his tattoo and telling me he wanted someone he couldn't have. It was me. My hand shook as I pulled two bottles of beer out of the drawer in the refrigerator. Paul had feelings for _me_.


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

I was instantly uneasy again in Paul's company. If I was right and he did like me, what was I supposed to do with that? Ignore it and pretend I hadn't guessed, obviously, but in the meantime I was unsure how to behave and had completely run out of things to say. I knew all too well what it was like longing for someone who didn't want you back and I wouldn't have wished it on anyone. Maybe I had just read it all wrong; put two and two together and come up with five or six.

I was saved from having to make conversation by the pizza guy arriving and I paid him, collected a couple more beers from the refrigerator and carried everything into the living room. I switched on the television and discovered one of the channels was showing re-runs of the Police Academy movies back to back. We watched for a while and Paul glanced at me a few times as we sat at opposite ends of the sofa with the pizza boxes in the middle; I knew he noticed I had suddenly gone quiet. He probably thought it was because he said he was gay and I wasn't comfortable with it.

'Say something, for God's sake,' I thought to myself. I asked him about the rest of the pack; that way he would talk. It worked and quickly we were chatting again. He told me what everyone was doing, even Bella.

"She came to see Sam once to find out what happened to you after Billy died. He just told her you left town. No one's seen her since; the bloodsuckers are all holed up together in that weird glass house."

Hearing about her didn't bother me at all; I even joked about how I had driven the pack mad with my pining for her. By the time we went to our rooms to sleep, I had relaxed again. I slept like the dead and when I rose in the morning, Paul was already up making coffee.

"Here." He passed me a mug. "This is what it's supposed to taste like."

I grinned at him. "I like it strong." I sipped the coffee and raised my eyebrows. "Actually...this is better." Another mouthful. "How long are you staying?"

Shit, that probably sounded like I couldn't wait for him to leave. "I mean, I have to go to work for a few hours so should I leave you a key?" I added.

"I have to be back Monday," he said. "I'll just go and look around the town or something while you're working."

In the end he rode to the shop with me and then set off on foot to explore. For once I didn't have any jobs in and I started work on the engine rebuild, hoisting it out of the car and beginning taking it to pieces. The time flew by and Paul appeared just before one o'clock. We returned to the house again and then went wandering in the woods, following a path until we came to the place I'd been shot on the other side. A broken bush indicated where I had thrown myself out of reach of the beam of light when I phased back. I shuddered as I remembered it and quickly turned to lead the way back to the house.

"You know, you should probably give Sam a call," Paul said. "I talked to him this morning."

"Yeah. Ok."

I immediately began to feel nervous again, even though Paul had told me more than once that they all missed me and wanted to hear from me. I felt that I should have let at least Sam know where I was instead of making it impossible for anyone to contact me, but a year ago all I'd wanted to do was hide. Now I took his number from Paul and went to my room to call him. He picked up on the second ring.

"Yeah? Sam Uley."

"Hey, Sam, it's..."

"Jacob!" He sounded delighted. "I was hoping you'd call. Are you ok?"

"Yeah."

"Not fighting with Paul, I hope."

"No."

I talked to him for maybe an hour. Emily came on the line too for a few minutes and everything was exactly the same as it had always been with them. Sam said nothing about the fact that I had left and cut myself off from them, but only wanted to know how I was doing, if I made friends, whether I was happy. Talking to him made me long to see him and the others and when we finished the call, tears welled up and spilled down my cheeks. For the first time in months I felt lost again and I knew I would go back to visit before too much longer.

I sat there sniffling pathetically, feeling like letting go and sobbing like I had at the cemetery right before I left La Push, but not wanting Paul to hear me. However, a couple of minutes later he caught me anyway. He knocked on the door and opened it before I could say anything. I jerked my head up and scrubbed my hands over my face, embarrassed.

"Hey, are you ok?" He came over to where I sat cross-legged on the bed and sat in front of me.

"Mmm...yeah." I took a deep breath and tried to get myself together. "Sorry. Talking to them brought back a lot of memories. I guess I miss them more than I thought," I said shakily.

He reached out and gave my shoulder a squeeze and much to my annoyance another tear escaped.

"Shit," I muttered.

Paul's hand slid from my shoulder to the back of my neck beneath my hair and just rested there. He didn't say anything, but continued to sit there with his hand on me as I struggled with my emotions. Curiously his touch comforted me and I tried a rather watery smile. A second later his lips touched mine. I suppose I should have seen it coming, but I just didn't. One moment he was just sitting there and the next he leaned in and kissed me. I was too stunned to do anything; I didn't even pull away and his lips clung to mine for a long moment. I noticed how warm and soft they were and then I pulled back quickly. What the hell was I doing?

Paul snatched his hand off me and jumped up.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that." He left the room quickly and closed the door after him.

I licked my lips and gulped. Shit. Now what? My heart hammered and my stomach filled with butterflies. Somehow I would have to go and face him again and I had no idea what I would say. I found I wasn't horrified that he'd kissed me, only surprised that he had. Obviously I had been right and he did have feelings for me, but I hadn't thought he would do anything about it. Maybe it was just that I'd been crying and he wanted to comfort me. He probably felt just as nervous as I did now - wondering if I would stay in my room avoiding him or go out and maybe ask him to leave.

I got up and opened the door. I could hear the television on in the living room and I went to the bathroom first and quickly washed my face before I went to join him. He was sitting on the sofa with his feet on the coffee table, biting his lip and looking as miserable as I'd ever seen him. I sat down quickly.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that," he said again.

"Don't worry about it. It's fine." I shot him a smile.

"I was just...you looked so miserable."

"Yeah and now you do," I blurted out.

His lips curved up at the corners just a touch. "I thought you would probably come out and ask me to leave."

"I'm not going to do that. Do you want a beer?"

"Yeah."

I fetched a couple of bottles and later ordered Chinese take-out. I usually made an effort to cook things for myself or alternatively went to the diner, but it occurred to me that doing either of those things with Paul would be kind of weird; the first option seemed oddly intimate and the second too much like a date. I frowned at myself. Such a thought wouldn't have crossed my mind if he hadn't kissed me.

We spent the rest of the evening watching television again. We ate the food right out of the cartons it was delivered in and washed it down with more beer. I never really drank that much, only the occasional bottle on a Friday or Saturday night. After three my head felt a little fuzzy and everything that Murtaugh and Riggs did in Lethal Weapon 2 seemed far more hysterically funny than usual. Paul was laughing just as much as I was and I was relieved that there was no tension between us.

I leaned forward to grab my beer from the table, took a swig and put it back just as he reached out for the other bottle. His knuckles bumped my wrist and suddenly my hand was in his without me realising how it had got there.

"Hey..." I heard myself laughing again. "...let go."

He didn't let go and he leaned closer to me. Suddenly I was sure he was going to kiss me again and I sucked my breath in and held it. I knew I should pull my hand free and move away, but I couldn't seem to make myself do it. He halted a couple of inches away from me and met my eyes, almost like he was asking if it was ok to kiss me. I had no idea if it was ok or not; my heart was racing and I couldn't seem to make sense of my thoughts. I dropped my eyes away from his and parted my lips to let my breath out, vaguely aware that I was probably giving him an invitation.

A second later his lips touched mine and I stayed still as he kissed me warmly, softly, caressing my lips with his. I didn't think about whether it was right or wrong or whether it mattered that it was _Paul_ kissing me. I found I liked it and after a moment I began to respond. I kissed him back and after another minute he let go of my hand and slid his arms around me instead. I held onto him too and his tongue plunged into my mouth, exploring, making me do the same. I could barely breathe and I shivered as his hand ran down my back and then slipped under the bottom of my t-shirt. I heard myself whimper and I lost myself in the kiss until suddenly he stopped, pulling back and then resting his cheek against mine.

"Better stop this while I still can," he whispered, so quietly I barely heard it.

He let go of me, got up quickly and went into the bathroom. I stayed where I was until he came out again and went into the guest room. I didn't know what to think. I was both scared and excited. I went into the bathroom to clean my teeth and glanced at myself in the mirror, noticing my flushed face and eyes almost black where the pupils had dilated. Shivering, I went to my room quickly, stripped off and dived into the bed, my heart thumping wildly.

What just happened? I kissed _Paul_ and liked it. Was I gay now? Just like that? I realised I hadn't even got anything much to compare it to. One kiss with Bella who I'd been crazy in love with for ages and then two weeks kissing Jodie and jacking myself off thinking about her. Other than that, I had never been one to eye people up, fantasise about them. I'd never really had the opportunity. I fell for Bella when I was barely fifteen, then I was too miserable to think about it and then I was with Jodie, in a kind of half-hearted way I realised now. Maybe I liked both - girls and guys; maybe it was just that I needed somebody and Paul was here and it didn't matter who it was; maybe I wanted comfort and I was clinging to him because I knew he cared about me; maybe I had too many beers and didn't know what I was doing. No, it was nothing to do with the beer. Whatever it was, it had turned me on and I was still trembling, my heart still hammering. I had never been kissed like that in my life. I rolled over and pressed my face into the pillow.

"Oh, God," I groaned quietly.

What was I supposed to do now? The only thing that was certain was that I felt weak and shaky and I wanted him to kiss me again and that scared the hell out of me. Why was I scared? Because he was a _guy_? Because he was somebody I'd never really got on with up to now? Because I didn't want to risk feeling anything when he was leaving in less than two days? I had no idea.

"Jacob, you jerk," I muttered. "Why do you have to make everything so complicated?"

I tossed and turned, trying to make sense of my thoughts and failing miserably. I kept thinking about Paul lying in the next room and wondered if he was sleeping or if he was lying awake like me, thinking about me. Everything I had already thought rolled around and around in my mind and I didn't come up with any answers. I finally fell asleep and when I woke up I was no less confused. I didn't know how I felt or what I wanted, but I was decided on one thing. There was only one more day before Paul left and during that time I needed to keep a distance between us or I'd only screw myself up even more.

I got up and took a shower, then went to get some breakfast. There was no sign of Paul and I guessed he wasn't awake yet. I made coffee and toast and went to sit out on the porch while I ate. I was still out there an hour later when Paul appeared wearing only jeans, his hair wet from the shower.

"Hey." He sat down on the other wooden seat a few feet away.

"You want some coffee?" I offered. "I was going to get a refill."

"I'll make it," he said, getting up again and grabbing my mug. "I want it drinkable."

He grinned and went back into the house and I relaxed. I had thought things would be awkward again, but they weren't at all. He came back minutes later with two coffees and a slice of bread wrapped around some cheese for himself. He passed me my mug and sat down. I had to admit his coffee was about ten times better than mine.

"Mmm," I murmured as I swallowed some.

Paul smiled. "Do you live on take-out?" he asked me.

"What? No, why?"

"Because if your cooking's as bad as your coffee you'd starve otherwise." He snorted and shoved a bite of bread and cheese into his mouth.

"Hey, I can cook," I protested. I was actually pretty good, or at least I liked to think I was. I'd got plenty of practise at a young age, looking after Dad after my Mom died. "I cook a mean steak," I added. I was sure there were steaks in the freezer. Maybe I should cook after all. The idea didn't seem so weird as it had done the day before. "How do you eat steak?"

"Raw," grinned Paul.

"You mean rare."

"Whatever, as long as it's still bleeding."

"Fine, I'll make raw steak later and you can tell me whether it's as lousy as the coffee."

We spent most of the day just lounging around at the house except for a quick drive out to a supermarket to grab some salad to go with the steaks and some more beer. It almost seemed like nothing had happened; that he hadn't kissed me and I wondered if he regretted it or maybe just thought the same thing I had - that he had to leave in less than twenty-four hours. Whatever the reason, he didn't come near me and I almost - not quite, but almost - stopped thinking about it.

Later I made potato wedges and salad and fried the steaks for about five seconds on each side so the outer was just a little bit brown, but the meat itself raw all the way through. We ate with the plates on our laps on the sofa and washed the food down with more beer.

"Well, you ain't dead yet so it couldn't have been that bad," I commented, when Paul finished eating.

"Hell, Jake, you sound like a hick," he smirked. "Ain't?"

I grinned. I hadn't even realised I'd picked up some of the things Hank and a lot of my customers said.

"At least I don't drawl."

"You haven't heard yourself. A year down here, you're bound to turn into a redneck eventually." He gathered the plates up and headed for the kitchen. "The steak was great, by the way," he called over his shoulder. He returned a moment later with a couple more bottles of beer.

"You're a worse influence than the _hicks _here," I said. "I never drink like this."

"Maybe you should, you might lighten up," he teased, his eyes twinkling as they met mine.

I laughed awkwardly. Something had changed again, just in the last second. I told myself to stop looking at him and back away as he began to lean towards me. I licked my lips nervously, lowered my eyes and began to shuffle backwards, but his hand had already crept around my waist and I realised it was too late for me to do anything about it.


	8. Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

I felt him take the beer bottle out of my hand and put it down and then he was kissing me, just like he had the previous evening only he didn't start with soft and gentle this time; his mouth covered mine and in a second he was devouring me. It took me by surprise and immediately I was filled with heat and I was kissing him back. His tongue thrust in, his lips crushing mine, bruising them and I rested my hands on his chest temporarily, telling myself to push him away. Letting this happen again was just going to spoil things. He would leave tomorrow and probably be miserable; it would only add to the confusion I already felt; I would regret it, over-analyse it, get myself all worked up again. I was sure I was only kissing him because I was so lonely, wanting comfort, wanting some connection with the pack again. I could feel his heart banging in his chest almost as rapidly as mine and I slid my arms up around his neck rather than push him off me. I should stop thinking so much; it wasn't like I was paying any attention to my sense of reason anyway. The way he was kissing me was turning my bones to water, taking my breath away and suddenly making my jeans feel uncomfortably tight.

His lips left mine and traced a line of hot kisses along my jaw to my ear. I could hear my breath coming in harsh gasps.

"Oh, God," I groaned. "Don't. Paul..."

The tip of his tongue touched my ear lobe.

"What?" he murmured.

"We shouldn't...do this." I pressed my face into his neck and hoped he wasn't going to take any notice of me.

"Shall I stop then?"

"Mmm."

What was I really fighting against? Myself? Would it really be so bad if I let myself live a little? I was nineteen, not ninety and I had been letting myself dwell on what had hurt me in the past for far too long. If I thought better of it tomorrow, it wouldn't matter because he'd be gone. Why should I stop when my hammering heart and my stiffening dick were telling me that right now it was what I wanted?

"No," I breathed.

His tongue circled my ear again and his warm breath made me shiver. Then he let go of me and pulled back. I opened my eyes slowly, just in time to see him grasp the bottom of his t-shirt in both hands and quickly drag it off over his head. Then he was doing the same with mine. I raised my arms in the air automatically and a second later the t-shirt landed on the floor with his. He grasped both of my hands and placed them back on his chest. His skin was hot, hotter even than mine and his heartbeat somehow seeming stronger without a layer of fabric between my palm and his chest.

He took his hands away from mine and stroked one from my throat down to the top of my jeans. I felt my stomach flip over and the muscles jumped. His other hand came to rest on my leg. I was half facing him, one leg bent up a little on the couch and his fingers rested on my knee for a moment, then slid up the inside of my thigh until they almost reached my groin. I sucked my breath in and looked down at his hand. Another inch and it would be on my dick. Or my balls. He turned his hand and cupped them as I watched.

"Woah, what are you doing?"

He didn't answer me. His hand stayed still briefly and then slid up over my erection, squeezing it lightly through my clothes. I grasped his wrist quickly and stilled its movement. No one had ever touched me. I had got close to it with Jodie, but broke up with her before it happened. I was scared and excited - more excited than scared actually and I knew if I really made him stop I'd wish I hadn't because I was _aching_ now. I let go of his wrist and immediately he took his hand off me. Damnit. What could I do? Say 'I changed my mind, keep going'? Then I'd sound like an idiot. Instead I plucked up some courage and unfastened my jeans. The head of my dick slid free of the top of the cotton shorts I was wearing underneath and after a brief pause Paul lifted his hand again and ran his thumb over it. I whimpered and shivered. He leaned closer and brushed his lips against my ear again.

"Are you sure about this?"

"Mmm." His thumb was still stroking me. Was I sure? Jesus. "Yeah."

"Come to bed with me."

Bed? Suddenly it seemed less like harmless fooling around and more like...sex. But it would certainly be more comfortable than the sofa and if it was going to turn into anything more it would happen wherever we were in the house, bed or not.

"Ok." I barely whispered it and I got up slowly, my legs weak, and led the way into my own room.

"I'll just be a second." Paul disappeared into his own room and I stood there waiting for him to come back, still confused and scared, but too aroused to let it worry me any longer.

He was about five seconds and then he closed the door, put something down on the bed table in the darkness and drew me into his arms. He held me close and began to kiss me again, eventually sliding his hands down my back to the waistband of my jeans which were hanging low since I'd unfastened them. He gave them a quick push downwards and they slipped down my legs. Then his hands were on my butt, squeezing, pulling me harder against him so that I could feel the outline of his dick inside his pants, straining to get free.

I groaned into his mouth, holding on tight to him with both arms, trembling as the fingers of one of his hands pressed between my buttocks, nudging my balls from behind. I wouldn't have been in the least surprised if I came in my underwear, but after a moment teasing me like that he stopped and backed away a little. I opened my eyes and realised as they got used to the darkness that he was unfastening his own pants. I stepped out of mine and sat down on the bed. Then after a moment I quickly slid my shorts off. It hardly mattered; if I didn't, then Paul was only going to take them off anyway.

When he lay down beside me he was naked too. He slid one arm under my neck and pulled me close and his dick bumped against my stomach, then pressed into it as he held me tighter. Mine in turn was trapped between both our bellies and it ached unbearably. I had never been so desperate for release in my life and when Paul drew back a little, slid his free hand between us and wrapped it around my shaft, I sighed with relief. He began to stroke me, gripping firmly but not too tight, squeezing harder at the base than at the top, his thumb stroking over the head at the end of each upstroke. He wasn't really doing anything different to what I did to myself, but it felt about ten times better. Maybe because a part of me was still convinced I was doing the wrong thing, which made it seem all the more exciting.

I came forcefully, covering Paul's hand and spurting onto my own stomach.

"Sorry."

Somehow my over-excitement relieved the tension and I found myself chuckling as I gasped for breath. Paul laughed softly and leaned over me to wipe his hand on the quilt. His hard-on bumped my stomach again and without waiting for him to ask, or grab hold of my hand and place it on himself, I reached down and curled my fingers slowly around him. Nervousness almost made me laugh again and snatch my hand back, but instead I gripped more firmly and began to stroke up and down. He felt a little different from me, slightly thicker. I could feel every vein standing out against the skin and the stickiness of pre-cum on the head when I ran my thumb over it. It took him barely any longer than me to finish and by then I found I was almost fully erect again.

We lay holding each other and kissing for a little while and by then I had stopped fighting with myself. I was in the languid state that followed ejaculation, but at the same time aroused and wanting more; wanting more of Paul.

I don't know what I was expecting to happen next, but cuddles and little pecks on the lips quickly became heated again and I found myself lying on my back, the weight of Paul's body pressing me into the mattress. His dick throbbed against mine and he wedged one knee between my legs. I slid them further apart and pulled them up either side of him without even thinking about it.

'Oh, God', I thought. At the age of nineteen years I was about to lose my virginity. To Paul Lahote. Was this really happening?

He pulled his mouth away from mine and sucked on his own fingers for a moment, then his hand slid under me and I felt the tip of one digit stroking between my buttocks, circling the small tight hole there. Who would ever have thought _that_ would feel good? I squirmed beneath him, whimpering. My balls ached and I wanted..._shit! _I froze as his finger slid into me up to the first knuckle. His lips touched my ear.

"Relax."

It was a faint whisper and I took a breath, then let it out again as I relaxed my muscles. His finger slid deeper, probing gently, turning around first one way and then the other. I groaned and shivered. He carefully added another finger, pushing it in beside the first, then moving both independently of each other. I forced myself to stay relaxed, holding onto him with both hands until he withdrew his fingers suddenly and I felt surprisingly disappointed. He slid free of my arms and pulled himself off me, kneeling upright between my legs.

'Oh, God, don't stop,' I thought and then hoped I hadn't said it. I squinted up at him in the dim light as he reached over to the bed table to get something. A moment later he was ripping open the square packet of a condom, rolling it onto himself, then squeezing something into his hand from a small tube and coating himself in it. Then he lowered himself back down onto me, propping his weight up on one elbow, reaching down to guide himself with his free hand.

The head of his dick pressed up against me, cool and slippery, then entered slowly. It felt impossibly tight and more than a little uncomfortable and I struggled not to tense up again. He stayed still for a minute and gradually I began to get used to the feel of it. He slid forward another inch and it seemed easier. He kept moving and after a few seconds he was pressed firmly up against me, all the way in. I lifted my hands off the bed and rested them on his back, holding on tight to him as he drew back slowly and then thrust in again. Another thrust and I found myself moving with him, digging my nails into his skin, rolling my head back on the pillow. My dick rubbed against his stomach as we moved together and I felt incredible; over-sensitive both inside and out; as if I would explode at any moment.

"Oh, God," I groaned aloud.

I didn't want it to come to an end, but it was over all too quickly. I was on the edge after the first minute, but not long after that, when Paul began to thrust harder, gasping into my neck, his body shuddering and his dick jerking inside me, I erupted immediately, all over both of our stomachs. Paul rested his full weight on me for a minute, panting and shivering, then as he began to slip out of me he sat up quickly, removed the condom and went to the bathroom.

I grabbed some tissues from the box beside the bed and wiped my stomach and my dick, then rolled over and pressed my face into the pillow. I was still breathless, my heart banging wildly against my ribs and as I started to come back down to earth I began to think I shouldn't have done it. I felt so good and I knew I couldn't have stopped myself if my life depended on it, but _Paul_? What the hell was wrong with me? He was leaving in just a few hours, leaving _me_. I just slept with someone who lived twenty-five hundred miles away and already my heart hurt. Damnit, why did I have to feel so much? He probably didn't feel anything. He probably just wanted to screw someone. Hell, he kept condoms and lube in his bag, for Christ's sake, it was like he _expected _to be having sex while he was here. The fact that he had told me he had a 'couple of casual things with guys in Forks' didn't register at that moment. I had visions of him sleeping with anyone who looked twice at him.

I curled up onto my side and wrapped my arms around myself. If I kept telling myself things like that, maybe it wouldn't be too late for me and I could just see it as a bit of fun the way he did. Then when he left I would be ok and I could just carry on with the life I had made myself. Hell, why had I let him fuck me?

He came back into the room and I held my breath as he climbed onto the bed, scooted over to me and slid both arms around me. He lifted one hand to pull my hair out of my face and his mouth touched my ear, then my neck. He was holding me like he did feel something.

"I've always been a little bit in love with you. Even before the pack when you hung out with Embry and Quil all the time and me and Jared used to wind you all up. I only behaved like such an ass because I didn't want you - or the others - to see through me."

My heart lurched. I didn't want to hear that; I didn't want to hear anything that might stop me thinking I'd just made one of the biggest mistakes of my life. It wasn't that I'd done it with a guy - that didn't seem important and I guessed after all that I must like both, or maybe only guys. It was because I'd just fallen into bed with someone I had barely spoken to in two years, that I never got along with in the past, that I had never felt any attraction to; but somehow suddenly I had wanted to be with. I had always thought when I slept with someone it would at least be a person I was crazy about or maybe heading that way. Yet again I was filled with confusion - excitement, fear, longing and regret all at once. I would just have to keep on telling myself it had been nothing. In the morning I would tell myself that. There were still a few hours left.

I rolled over slowly and pressed my face into his neck, snuggling against him, sliding my arm around him and holding on tight. Damnit. I was a little bit in love with him too. He hugged me closer and stroked a hand through my hair, pulled his head back a little and brushed his lips against mine, then just held me again. I could feel his heart racing the same way mine was and I doubted I would be able to sleep a wink with the jumble of thoughts in my head warring with each other, but eventually I closed my eyes and drifted off, still holding onto Paul as if I never meant to let go.


	9. Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

When I woke in the morning it was six-thirty and I was alone. I turned over just to make sure, but Paul was definitely gone, the quilt pushed back and the pillow still showing an indentation from his head. My pulse quickened and I peered over the side of the bed. His clothes were gone too. I let my breath out in a rush and rolled onto my back.

The house was silent. Had he just left, then? Without saying anything? I frowned, not sure if I was upset by that or relieved. I was certainly confused, more so than I had been before I fell asleep. I still couldn't quite believe I slept with _Paul._ What had I been thinking? I could try and blame the beer again, but I hadn't been drunk, only carried away, lost in the moment, finding myself longing for someone so much that maybe anyone would have done. No, that wasn't it. It was him I had wanted. I groaned softly and then froze as I heard the toilet flush and then the shower start running. He was still here. Shit. I wouldn't have the first clue what to say to him now. My heart thumped wildly, partly from excitement that he was still in the house and partly from dread that I would have to face him.

I turned over again onto my front and hid my face in case he came back in. Perhaps if I pretended to be asleep, he would just leave. He had a plane to catch after all, he probably wouldn't hang around. Besides, he might be just as keen to avoid me as I was him. Maybe he regretted it or just saw it as a one-off that he would quickly forget.

'I've always been a little bit in love with you.'

Had he really said that? He wasn't going to regret it or forget it. And he probably wasn't going to just leave either. My heart, which was already hammering, sped up and it was impossible to keep my breathing even and pretend to be asleep. I stayed face down however, my cheeks burning as I thought about last night; how good it had felt with his lips on mine, his arms holding me, his dick in me.

The shower stopped and a few minutes later I heard soft footsteps going into the kitchen, a rush of water as he filled the kettle, the click of the toaster as he pressed the lever down to make breakfast. Damnit, he wasn't going to leave and pretty soon I was going to have to get up. I was beginning to notice the fullness of my bladder and cursed myself for not emptying it of beer before I came to bed. Still, that was the last thing I'd been thinking about last night.

Another five minutes and I knew I would have to get up. I slid out of bed, grabbed my shorts and pulled them on, then put my jeans on as well. I pulled fresh underwear and a shirt out of a drawer and made my way to the bathroom, avoiding looking in the direction of the kitchen.

I used the toilet and showered quickly, then dressed again and paused another couple of minutes to clean my teeth. When I turned the tap off I heard whistling coming from the kitchen. Paul was _whistling?_

'Go and talk to him, stop being such a dick,' I silently told myself.

I walked slowly into the kitchen, my stomach in a knot and my heart fluttering. He was silent now, leaning against the kitchen sink, sipping coffee. He put the mug down immediately and smiled at me.

"Hey. Did you sleep ok?"

"Um...yeah."

"You want some coffee?"

"Yes, please."

I avoided his eyes and shoved my hands into my pockets. He switched the kettle on again, scooped more coffee into a clean mug and added milk. I couldn't think of a thing to say. He handed me the mug of coffee and I gulped some, burning my mouth and grimacing. I put the mug down on the counter.

"I'm gonna have to get on the road soon," Paul said. "I didn't book a flight back, but there's one around midday I was hoping to catch."

"Ok."

He moved towards me suddenly, rested his hands on my waist.

"I wish I could stay longer."

He leaned closer and I knew he meant to kiss me. It was just going to make everything harder and I turned my head to the side.

"Don't." I pulled away from him and a brief glance at his face showed me his disappointment.

"I shouldn't have let it happen," I heard myself say.

"You regret it."

"I've never done this," I confessed.

"With a guy? Well, I guessed that."

"With anyone." Why the hell did I just tell him that? What did it matter?

His breath hissed out suddenly.

"And you didn't expect your first time to be with me," he said. "Is it really that bad?"

"I just wish I hadn't done it. Not like this."

"I'm sorry you feel like that. Last night I thought we had a connection. Not just the sex, before that."

"It was a mistake," I said awkwardly, wondering if I was making another one by saying that. I was too confused; I needed time to think and I couldn't do it with him there. I just didn't see how anything could come of it when he was about to fly to the other end of the country and I was too worried about everything to even try.

I glanced at him again for a second and then dropped my eyes again quickly, but not before I had seen the crushed look on his face. I felt like I owed him some kind of explanation, but I didn't know how to be honest when I didn't really know what I felt.

"I don't want to get hurt again," I mumbled. "I'm just not ready."

That was it really, in a nutshell. If I let myself think I could be with him, it would hurt.

"You can't go through the rest of your life alone," he said.

He turned and went into the living room, grabbed some of his things which were in there, then went to the guest room for his bag. I turned away, resting my hands on the edge of the sink and staring into it as I heard his footsteps going from one room to the next. Suddenly he was at the door, the keys to the rental car in one hand, his bag in the other.

"I never would have hurt you, Jacob," he said softly. "I love you."

The door closed behind him before I could turn around and say anything, or even think about what to say. What could I have said? 'I love you too'? Did I? Maybe a little bit. I could have at least said something instead of just letting him go thinking I felt nothing.

The rental car reversed off the drive and headed up the street. My emotions got too much for me and before I could even think about running after him, telling him I was an idiot and I did feel something, I phased. I let out a snarl of anguish and my claws scratched the polished wood floor, tearing up deep furrows and probably costing me hundreds of dollars in repairs.

I bounded into the living room, trapped by the house walls. There was nowhere to run to unless I hurled myself through the panes of one of the windows and then someone would probably shoot me again. It was daylight, people were around setting off for work, which is what I should have been getting ready to do. I paced about, growling to myself, tormented, then eventually I stood still in the middle of the living room and howled, not knowing how else to let out what I was feeling. The sound was deafening.

A moment later I was human again, crouching naked on the carpet, shivering and cursing out loud, hoping none of the windows were open.

"You fucking idiot, Jacob, half the town probably heard that!"

I got slowly to my feet and glanced at the clock. Seven-forty. Somehow more than half an hour had gone by and Paul was long gone and now I was going to be late for work. I went to my room to get some more clothes, trying to get control of myself.

If only I could have had the last hour over again, I wouldn't have let him leave without at least saying something. He _loved_ me! And he probably thought that I didn't give a shit, that I was glad to see the back of him. I'd told him I regretted sleeping with him, for God's sake, even after admitting it was my first time.

I reminded myself that I now had Sam's cellphone number, but I wasn't so sure calling him and asking for Paul's number would be very smart. He'd wonder why I hadn't got it when Paul was here. Why hadn't I got it when Paul was here?

"Fuck," I muttered.

I was a mess. Another coffee, then I'd go to work, not that caffeine was going to do much for my peace of mind. I flicked the switch on the kettle and went to the refrigerator for the milk, then froze. A small piece of yellow paper from the notepad I kept on the kitchen counter was sticking out from under the stupid Garfield fridge magnet which had been stuck on the refrigerator door when I moved in. I snatched the note so vigorously that the magnet flew off and bounced to the floor. There was a phone number with 'Paul' written underneath it.

My knees sagged and I leaned against the refrigerator door. It must be his cellphone number. I pulled out my own phone and quickly saved the number in the contacts before I did something else stupid like lose the note; then I pressed the call button before I could stop myself. It went straight to voicemail and I hung up and punched the wall. Shit. He turned his phone off. He would be more than half way to the airport by now and probably wouldn't switch it back on until he landed in Seattle. He had said he planned to get a flight around noon and I remembered him saying not long after he arrived that it took three and a half hours. Seven and a half hours from now. I would just have to wait and call later. At least it gave me some time to think about what I was going to say.

My day at work seemed to last a week. I had plenty to do and I threw myself into it, but I looked at the clock on the workshop wall every few minutes and the hands barely seemed to move. Hank stuck his head around the door at twelve-thirty to ask if I wanted some lunch fetching from the diner, but I knew I couldn't have swallowed a single bite.

"I'm not hungry, thanks anyway. I'll watch the pumps."

He nodded and set off. Twelve-thirty-one. Paul's plane would be in the air, if it took off on time. I turned back to the car I was working on. The afternoon passed slowly; three-thirty came and went and I guessed the plane must have landed in Seattle. After another fifteen minutes I pulled my cellphone out and stared at it, considering calling him right away, my stomach lurching, but Hank was too close for comfort and a customer could turn up at any time. I put the phone away again, chewing my lip and got on with my work. By the time I finished, he would have driven home. Then it would be easier.

When I got home at ten minutes after six I still didn't call. I lost my nerve and as usual, over-analysed everything. I could call him, tell him I didn't mean it when I said I regretted what happened, and then what? He'd still be in La Push and I'd still be in Fredericksburg; we still couldn't be together even if I had the guts to take the risk that throwing myself into it might hurt me. I put the phone on the coffee table and stared at it all evening until I went to bed, almost expecting it to ring, but it didn't. I went to bed at ten and slept, only because I was completely exhausted.

I continued to argue with myself for the rest of the week and by Friday, even Hank had noticed something was wrong with me.

"You alright, Jake? You look like hell," he grunted. "Sick or something?"

"Uh...maybe...I don't feel so good," I said.

I didn't; I felt like going to bed and staying there indefinitely.

"I don't think I'll bother opening up tomorrow," I added.

Hank raised one eyebrow and grinned. "Not working on Saturday? Jeez, you must be sick."

When I went home that evening, I did just what I felt like doing; absolutely nothing. I skipped dinner for the third time that week, took a shower and fell into bed. My heart hurt and my stomach felt as if someone had punched it. I was lost, lonely, longing to feel Paul's arms around me again. I was a jerk. He said he loved me and I pushed him away because I was scared. I had convinced myself that the minute I let myself get close to someone, they would tell me they wanted someone else more and leave me. Just because Bella had done that, didn't mean Paul was going to. He had loved me for years; avoided getting involved with anyone else, apparently because he wanted me too much to be happy with another guy. So what the fuck was I doing longing for him when he was right at the end of the phone?

I closed my eyes, imagining he was there with me, remembering some of the things that happened at the weekend. Laughing together over those comedy movies, Paul catching hold of my hand and kissing me; him teasing me about my lousy coffee; taking me to bed, kissing, touching, fucking; falling asleep in his arms. I would call him in the morning.

Somehow I slept and when I woke it was Saturday. I'd been dead to the world for twelve hours and someone was knocking on my door. Who the hell was knocking at - I glanced at the clock - seven-thirty? I threw myself out of bed, dragged my jeans on and rushed to the door to find two workmen outside.

"Yes?"

"You got some damage to a wood floor?"

"Oh. Sure." I had completely forgotten I called a carpenter on Monday and asked them to fix my floor at the weekend. "Come in."

I directed them to the kitchen.

"How the hell did that happen?" one of them asked, staring curiously at the torn up strips in the floor.

"Um...I...uh...was moving a piece of furniture," I said. "Had something sharp underneath."

"Right." He glanced at me again and then shrugged. "Right, we'll get to it, then. If we replace the damaged strips, that'll be the best way. Probably take a couple hours."

"Sure, that's fine. I'm just going to take a shower." I left them to it and went into the bathroom.

By the time the workmen finished, I was tense and irritated. Paul would be at work by now; I knew he opened his store around ten and I could hardly call him there. I made myself find things to do, heading out to the supermarket to stock up on groceries since the refrigerator and the cupboards were bare, then cleaning up the house which was untidy and filled with dust from the workmen sanding the new parts of the kitchen floor.

When seven o'clock eventually came, I pulled out my cell. I guessed Paul would probably have got home by now. My heart was hammering and my mouth went dry. Would he still want to hear from me? He hadn't called me after all.

'I never would have hurt you, Jacob. I love you.'

His words echoed in my head. That wouldn't have changed in just under six days. He probably didn't call because he thought I didn't want him to. I found his number in my list of contacts and pressed 'call'.

It rang several times and I almost ended the call again, but then suddenly he picked up.

"Yeah?" he barked.

He sounded pissed. Anything I might have said went straight out of my head and for a long moment I said nothing.


	10. Chapter 10

CHAPTER TEN

"Jacob?" Paul said more softly.

"Yes."

"I hoped you'd call. I didn't know if you would, but I hoped."

"I'm sorry, I should have called Monday. I almost did, but I freaked out," I blurted. "I didn't mean what I said."

"You didn't mean what?" He paused and then continued before I could say anything. "You mean you don't wish it hadn't happened?"

"No. Yes." I laughed nervously and told myself to just be honest and say what I was thinking for once. "I don't regret it. I was a fool and I knew it the minute you closed the door and left."

"You phased, didn't you?" he said. I could hear the smile in his voice.

"Yeah, tore up half the kitchen floor. It cost me almost four hundred bucks to fix. How did you know?"

"Wild guess."

"I'm surprised you didn't hear me, I howled loud enough to make the whole town turn out with their guns."

"I wish I had heard; I'd have come back."

"Did you mean it? What you said right before you left?"

"That I won't hurt you? That I love you? Yeah."

"I wish you were still here," I said with a sigh. "It's been a real shit week."

"Me too. You might have guessed that when I growled down the phone at you."

"You didn't know it was me?" I said.

"No, I didn't keep your number. Sam's got it, but I thought if I had it I wouldn't have been able to stop myself calling you. I figured you'd be better off if I left you alone to decide what you want."

I winced and squeezed my eyes shut. Even after I told him I regretted being with him and let him leave with nothing, he still spent the week doing what was best for me and I felt even shittier.

"I'm sorry," I said again.

"It's ok. So, you want us to keep in touch..." he began.

"I want more than that, Paul," I interrupted at once. "I'm just not sure how it's going to work with me here and you there. I'm not ready to come back. Maybe I will be, but..." My voice trailed off.

"I tried not to pressure you into even coming for a visit," Paul said. "I'm still not. We don't have to decide anything right now. We can talk on the phone and I'll come back and see you in a few weeks. If you want."

"Yes," I said at once.

"If it turns out eventually that you feel the same way I do, but you want to stay in Texas, I'd pack up and move," he added.

"Really?" I smiled at the phone, wishing he could see me. I couldn't quite believe what was happening and I mentally kicked myself again for letting him leave on Monday the way I did. He was willing to give up everything - home, family, friends, business - to be with me. My doubts faded rapidly.

"I do feel the same," I said. "A little bit. I spent too much time avoiding getting close to anybody in case they did the same thing Bella did."

"You can be sure I won't do that," said Paul firmly. "Like I said, I'd never hurt you."

With the serious part out of the way, suddenly I felt I could say anything to him and proceeded to do pretty much that. We talked for more than three hours until suddenly my cell ran out of credit and cut me off.

"Fuck!" I spat. I really should do something about getting a contract. I grabbed the truck keys and set off to the nearby 7-11 which I knew sold phone credit. It was ten-forty-five and they were encouraging customers already in the store to head for the checkouts.

"We're about to close up," one of the staff standing by the door said to me.

"Yeah, I know, I just want phone credit," I said. "Please, come on, I was in the middle of a call."

"Go on, hurry up." He backed up and let me pass.

I bought fifty dollars worth of credit and topped up the phone as I walked back to the lot behind the building. Then I sent Paul a text message.

'Sorry, ran out of credit. Speak soon. Jacob x.'

The phone rang in my hand as I climbed into the truck.

"You went out to buy credit _now_?" Paul laughed.

"Yeah, I guess I did. I didn't get chance to say goodbye."

I started the truck and began to drive home one-handed, the phone to my ear as we chatted a few more minutes.

"Ok, I'm home," I said and yawned. "Sorry. I haven't slept much this week."

"Me neither. Your bed's awful lonely right now."

"My bed?" I closed the house door after me and locked it, then kicked off my boots.

"I guess I can tell you this now; I didn't want to sound like some kind of creepy stalker before." He laughed again. "I didn't just buy your house for somewhere to live - there were at least three others in La Push on the market and plenty in Forks that were cheaper and nearer my work. When you left, it killed me. It was bad enough when you were here and all you wanted was Bella, but then you left town and I thought if I had your house, at least I'd be closer to you in a way. It didn't work, by the way. I'd probably have been better off moving to Forks. Anyhow, the house is pretty much the way you left it. I didn't let them auction the furniture, I spoke to the company and bought the lot the same day I bought the house. So I've been sleeping in your bed for a year. That's pretty sad, huh?"

"No, it's..." I paused, somewhat overwhelmed. I tried to imagine how I would have felt if Bella moved away and I went to live in her house. I guessed it would have been even worse than her choosing Edward over me. At least when she did that, I had known it was the end and I could eventually, slowly start to move on. If she had just left town and there had been no Edward, I would always have hoped she'd come back one day, look at me differently. And that was exactly what Paul went through.

"You must have been pretty miserable," I said.

"Yeah, that's kind of an understatement. Right now it seems like it was worth the wait."

We talked just a few more minutes and then finished the call. I went straight to bed, not in my own room, but in the guest room, a stupid grin on my face. I hadn't been in the room since Paul left and when I pressed my face into the pillow, it still smelled of him. He had a warm, musky smell and I could almost imagine he was there when I closed my eyes.

I didn't do a lot on Sunday, but I talked to Paul again in the afternoon. He sent me a text message asking if he could call. Seconds after I replied, my phone rang and I answered it before the first ring ended.

"You don't have to ask if it's ok to call," I said, without even saying hello.

"You'll regret saying that when I call you five times a day," he laughed.

Once again we talked for hours. Paul was on a contract with unlimited calls to other cells on the same network and since he was on Verizon too, we could go on and on until we ran out of things to say. Strangely, that seemed impossible now. Considering when he had turned up to see me I couldn't think of a single thing to say to him, now I felt as if I were trying to make up for the last four years that I'd known him and barely exchanged a handful of words at a time with him.

When I went back to work on Monday morning, Hank stared curiously at me as I unlocked the workshop.

"What's with you?" he asked, blowing smoke out of his nose.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, that chip you had on your shoulder for the last year seems to have vanished. Sort things out with your brother, did you?"

"Um...yeah, I guess I did." I hadn't said anything about Paul leaving the previous week and Hank hadn't asked, so I guessed he must have thought he was still staying with me.

"That's good. Family's important."

He was right and since the pack were my only family now, I decided it was about time I made more effort to stay in touch. That night I called Sam again when I got home and discovered that Emily was in the hospital, having given birth to a baby boy that morning. They had named him Joshua Jacob after Sam's Dad and me, which almost moved me to tears.

"I will visit soon, I promise," I said. "Maybe in a couple of months."

"Take your time," Sam said. "I know you will when you're ready."

It was just a couple of days later that things began to go wrong for me. It was nothing to do with Paul; we continued to talk on the phone every day, even if it was only for ten minutes we didn't miss an opportunity. But something strange started happening at work which was more than a little worrying.

The first thing was one of my best customers calling to tell me, almost apologetically, that his brakes had failed after I fitted new discs and pads, causing him to run into his own garage door and damage both the car and the electric door.

I was both mortified and puzzled, because I knew full well I'd done the job properly. I always did jobs properly and then checked them twice over before I let the customer have them. I knew I'd done this particular job last Thursday - two days before I got over myself and called Paul for the first time. The guy had brought his car in on Thursday afternoon and I'd told him I wasn't sure if I would have time so he planned to collect it Friday. In the end I did finish the job, checked it over and left the car in the workshop overnight as I'd worked a little late to complete it. I called him Friday and he picked the car up. The only explanation I could come up with was that somehow I made a mistake while I was tying myself in knots over Paul.

Of course I had insurance, but it wasn't going to cover the car I worked on for my own poor workmanship. I didn't actually want to deal with insurance at all even for the garage door, because I would have to tell them I screwed up, so I asked the customer to get a quote for both the door and the car and then wrote him a cheque. It was close to two thousand dollars and the poor guy apologised for taking my money, promising that he would still be bringing his cars to me for any work he needed.

That was only the first thing. A week later a similar thing happened, only this time a customer's brakes failed when he was in town, causing him to hit another car. He was less accommodating than the other guy and asked his own motor insurers to sue me. I handed it over to my insurance company to deal with and racked my brains as to how such a thing could have happened. Once, when I was a mess maybe I could understand, but twice and exactly the same thing - no way.

The circumstances were the same in that I had worked on the brakes. In addition, the second customer had brought his car in late, then collected it the next day. When did I do the work? The same afternoon he brought it in. I knew I had because he collected the car around eight-thirty in the morning. So I fixed two sets of brakes late in the day, checked the jobs and then left the cars in the workshop overnight. I didn't check them again before I let them go out - why would I need to?

"Fuck," I muttered.

They had been tampered with during the night. It was the only explanation. Someone must have broken into the workshop. I immediately began to look around it for evidence. Whoever had done this hadn't come in through the front door - it was triple bolted and padlocked in addition to the usual door locks. The small personnel door at the back of the building was untouched too. There were several windows high in the back wall of the building and I reached up and checked each. When I got to the last one, I found the catch broken and when I pushed on the glass with my fingertips, it swung open. A couple of feet below the window on the wall, I spotted a small smear of mud as if someone with muddy boots had caught their foot on the wall on the way down.

"Assholes," I whispered.

There was only one thing for it. I would have to lie in wait in the shop at night until I caught the perpetrator. Since they'd already done it twice, I didn't suppose they were going to stop now.

"What's up?" Hank appeared in the doorway at that moment.

"Someone broke in," I said, pointing. "Through that window."

"Anything missing?"

"No. They tampered with two of my customers' cars."

"Who did you upset?"

"No one that I'm aware of," I frowned.

"Your brother mess with anyone?"

"No."

"Could be old man Stewart," Hank mused.

"But that thing with his daughter was months ago."

Hank shrugged. "If he was gonna fuck you up, he wouldn't do it right away or you'd guess it was him, right? What did he say to you?"

I thought for a second and his words came to me as clearly as if he were standing right next to me.

"You'll remember me when this two-bit operation goes out of business," I repeated.

"There you go," Hank said. "Told you he fights dirty, didn't I?"

"Yes, but..."

"What are you gonna do about it?" he interrupted.

"Stay here at night until whoever it is does it again. I doubt he's doing it himself."

"No, he'll have paid - or threatened - one of his workers, probably. Wanna borrow my gun?"

"I don't need a gun," I said.

"You might."

"I won't," I averred.

"Fair enough." Hank shrugged.

That evening I locked up and drove home the way I always did, ate dinner and talked to Paul on the phone for a while, then a couple of hours later I went back on foot. It was already dark and I crept up to the rear of the building and let myself in through the personnel door. I lowered an old car seat I had kept into the pit, dropped down and sat there in silence, waiting to see what happened. As the night passed I dozed, but I remained undisturbed until the sky outside the windows began to lighten as dawn approached. I let myself out again, ran home and grabbed a couple hours sleep before I returned to work in the truck.

I repeated the exercise several more times until by the end of the week I was exhausted from lack of proper sleep. Then finally on Friday night something happened. I was dozing in the pit when a slight sound disturbed me. I lifted my head and from where I was sitting I could just see the window at the end of the wall. It was open and a pair of legs appeared through it, then the rest of the guy as he lowered himself quietly to the floor. I had a car in the shop overnight and he immediately went to take a look at it, then to my surprise he turned away and went towards the shelving at one side of the building where I kept my cash box and order book. I rose to my feet carefully and peered out of the pit, wishing there was just a little more light to see what he was doing. Paper rustled and it appeared he was looking at the order book. He flipped open a cellphone and used the light from the screen to see the pages.

"Exhaust system - shit," I heard him mutter.

My brain whirred. So he was checking for vehicles that were in having work done on the brakes so he could easily tamper with them and make it look like I didn't do the job properly. I placed both hands on the edge of the pit and pulled myself up silently. He was still looking at the book, maybe for future suitable jobs. I rushed him, grabbed him by the back of the neck and banged his head down on the shelf before he even had chance to turn around.

"What the fuck are you doing?" I snarled.

He let out a cry of surprise. "Let me go, please!" he gasped.

I turned him around and pinned him against the shelves with one hand on his chest. Then I reached out and punched the light switches on the wall nearby, closing my eyes briefly so that I didn't blind myself. When I opened them, I was looking at a young guy of around my own age, his face terrified and lower lip trembling as if he was about to burst into tears.

"Explain," I said grimly.

"I...I...I'm sorry, I was after the cash box," he stammered.

"Don't lie to me. I don't hide my money in the order book. How about I tell you what you were doing and you agree?" I suggested. "You were checking to see if that car over there was having work done on the brakes, so you could fix them to fail when the customer takes it away. Like you've done twice before. Am I right?"

"Um...I'm s-sorry!"

"Who told you to do this?"

"No one."

"Luke Stewart, was it?"

"No!"

I pulled him away from the shelving a few inches and then slammed him back into them again, making him groan in pain.

"I got all night," I said. "And you're going to talk. I'd rather be in trouble for assault than poor workmanship and trust me, I can do a lot of damage."

"Uh...alright! But he's gonna kill me! I work for him and he said he'd fire me and make sure I never work again in this town if I told. I got a young wife and a baby," he wailed and then began to sob pathetically.

I let go of him and backed off a step. "Say the name!" I growled.

"M-M-Mister Stewart."

So it was him. All because I split with Jodie after two weeks and she shed a few tears over it. I sighed heavily. Now I just had to figure out what to do about it.


	11. Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"What's your name?" I asked more calmly. I couldn't help feeling a little bit sorry for the young guy in front of me. He looked quite terrified.

"My...? Pardon me?" He scrubbed his hands over his face and stared at me in surprise.

"Your name. You must have one."

"D-Dave. Dave Lawson."

"How old are you?"

"Nineteen. I've been an apprentice at Gillespie's just under a year."

"Right, Dave. Well, you know I'm not just going to ignore this. I don't mean what you did, I mean Stewart's hand in it. I'm being sued over the second car you fucked with."

"I'm sorry," he said miserably.

"You're going to help me fix it."

"How? I'll do anything. I hated doing this. I don't even know you. I guess I lost my job anyway now."

"You're going to speak to my insurance company and give a statement on exactly what you did and why. I'm not having my name ruined and losing my business over this."

"Ok," he said meekly.

I pulled my cellphone out. "Give me your number," I instructed, switching my phone on.

He reeled off a number and I saved it in the phone. A moment later three text messages arrived and I guessed they were from Paul. I had talked to him earlier, but only for a short time before I came back to the workshop.

"What are you gonna do to me?" Dave asked then.

"Nothing. Like you said, you'll lose your job. And what's your wife going to say about this? I think that'll be sufficient punishment for you. I can't really blame you - Stewart would only have got someone else to do this if you refused, you're just the messenger. So long as you give a statement and go to court if it's required, you won't hear anything else from me."

"Thanks, Mr..."

"Jacob Black." I went to unlock the door. "Go on, get out of here. I'll be in touch."

He nodded and backed out of the door. "Thanks, Jacob."

A moment later he was gone. I went back to secure the window and then locked up again and began to walk home, checking the messages as I went. The first one said he had called and got my voicemail, the second one just said he guessed I was busy with something and the third one said, 'Where are you? Are you ok?'

"Shit," I muttered. It was two-thirty in the morning, but I called him anyway.

"Jacob?" he said sleepily a moment later.

"Hey. Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up. You sent me a text about an hour ago."

"I know, I'm still up, I fell asleep on the couch. I had an idea something might be going on that you haven't mentioned. You seemed kind of edgy this week, like something's bugging you. Where are you anyway? I just heard an owl or something."

"I'm walking home from work."

"Wow, bit late for overtime, isn't it?"

"I had some trouble," I said. "I should have told you about it before I guess, but I wanted to sort it out first." I proceeded to tell him about the cars and the young man I'd caught in the workshop, while he uttered various curses at intervals.

"Do you want me to come down there?" he asked when I finished.

"No, it's fine. I mean, yeah, I want to see you, but don't rush down here for that, I can handle it," I said.

"Ok. Well, I was hoping to rush down in a couple of weeks anyway. I miss you like hell."

"I miss you too," I said.

I talked to him for a couple more minutes and then he went off to bed. Once home, I stayed up for the rest of the night planning what I was going to do about Stewart's antics. Part of me was incredibly tempted to phase and go and tear his house apart with him in it, but that would have been against everything I was, never mind how much I hated the bastard. Besides, hurting him would only hurt Jodie and I didn't want that.

I would go about it the right way; speak to the insurance company and get their advice first. In all honesty I would be happy to have any blame against me rescinded and his name dragged through the mud instead.

I had to wait until Monday to do anything about it as the insurance company office wasn't open on the weekends. They advised me to report the matter to the police and under no circumstances contact Luke Stewart myself. They already had an inch thick file on the car accident caused by the second brake tampering incident so knew the basics. I gave them Dave's name and number and then got on with things and waited for developments.

I had less work in that week and it was obviously a result of what had happened. People were wary of letting me fix their cars and I found myself at a loose end for at least half the days. I was still tempted to go and see Stewart and give him a fright, but I restrained myself determinedly, knowing I would only jeopardise things for myself.

On Wednesday afternoon Jodie came to see me. I was sitting on my old car seat next to Hank's deckchair, drinking a coke and trying not to cough as the smoke from his cigarette drifted over me.

"Hey, Jacob." She climbed out of her car and stopped in front of us. "May I speak with you?"

"Sure." I got up and we walked into the workshop. "I'm surprised to see you," I told her.

"I meant to drop by or call before, but somehow I just didn't," she said with a slight smile. "How are you?"

"I've been better."

"The police came to our house to question my Dad," she said. "They took him away to talk to him, but he won't tell me a thing. It's about you, isn't it?"

"Oh, look, I don't want to go into this with you. It's between me and him."

"He's done something because of me though, right? I heard you had some trouble over a customer's car crashing. I'm going to find out anyway, Jacob, you might as well tell me. I'd rather hear the truth than some watered down version from my Dad. Or an exaggerated report in the paper."

I sighed heavily. "He sent one of his workers to tamper with a couple of my customer's cars after I fixed them. I caught the guy breaking in."

Jodie gasped and her face paled. "He always said he was going to do something, but that was months ago. I thought he'd forgotten about it," she said. "I can't believe he's done this, the stupid jerk. You never even did anything wrong. This is all because I was being pathetic and sniffling over it that weekend after we broke up. I guess I really liked you and I'd thought it was more than it was. I'm so sorry; I never thought he'd do something like this."

"Don't worry about it," I said. "You can't help it if your Dad's..." I stopped before I said anything too insulting and Jodie laughed.

"You can say it. Asshole...dickhead..._criminal_," she said.

"Well, it'll be sorted out. The police and my insurance company are dealing with it. I guess they'll maybe fine him or something, maybe make him pay damages. So how are you anyway?" I changed the subject. "Apart from this, of course."

"Good." She smiled again. "I met somebody else, just last month."

"That's great," I said. "I hope he's treating you better than I did."

"Oh, you were nice to me, you were just screwed up," she said. "It's ok. Michael's amazing. He lives in Austin so we can only see each other on the weekends mostly, but it works. He just finished university last year and is training as an architect; he's the son of one of my Dad's customers. He brought a car over one day for some repairs and I happened to be at the shop. We got talking while he waited. What about you? Did you move on yet?"

"Yeah," I said. "Finally I did."

"You have a girl, then? Is she local?"

"No. Someone from back home in Washington who it turns out cared about me for a long time, only I didn't know it."

"Oh, wow," Jodie smiled. "What's her name?"

Should I tell her or lie? I'd never had to do this before and I wasn't sure.

"She does have a name, right?" prompted Jodie with a giggle.

"Um...yeah. It's...uh...a guy. Paul," I said.

"Oh!" Her eyes widened. "Is that the real reason why you broke up with me? You like guys?"

"No, it wasn't anything to do with it," I said. "I'd been in love with Bella for years and I wasn't over it when I started seeing you. Paul turned up out of the blue to visit a few weeks ago. We never got on before, but something just clicked."

"Wow," she said again. "Well, I guess that's cool, if you're happy. Must be tough, though, with the distance and all."

She stayed chatting a few more minutes and then took off. I spent the rest of the day with nothing to do and closed up early. I couldn't wait for the trouble to be over, although I worried that even if my name was cleared my customers still wouldn't come back now that there was doubt in their minds about me.

Surprisingly everything moved forward very quickly. Dave talked to both the police and my insurance company and apparently signed a form to say he would stand up in court and repeat it all if he had to. I had received notification that I would be required to attend court on May eighteenth when the case was to be heard. I didn't hear a word from Luke Stewart throughout and as soon as I got the letter about the court date, I called Dave.

"Dave, it's Jacob Black," I said when he answered the phone.

"Hey. How are you?"

"Ok. What about you?"

"Um...ok, I guess. AnnaBeth, my wife, is pissed as hell at me for being such a jerk. She reckons I should have quit the job rather than be blackmailed into being a criminal. I guess she has a point."

"Hope she soon gets over it. Have you heard about the court case?" I asked.

"Yeah, I got a letter this morning. I'll be there."

"Thanks. What about work?" I wondered. "Any sign of anything?"

"No." He sighed. "I'm gonna have to look at doing something else. I won't get a mechanic's job around here. I'm probably going to end up with a fine to pay as well, for breaking in your workshop and tampering with those cars."

"I hope they don't make it too steep," I said. I thought for a moment. He seemed like a genuine guy who wouldn't have done what he had if he hadn't been bullied into it. At least he had put things right since.

"Look, I can't promise anything," I continued. "Right now I don't have enough work in to keep myself busy, but before all this shit happened I was flat out all week and putting some people off. If it picks up again when this is over, maybe you could come and work for me."

"Are you serious?" Dave sounded amazed.

"Yeah."

"Wow! Thanks! If I do that, you wouldn't regret it, I swear."

"I'm sure I wouldn't."

I talked to him a few more minutes and then I called Paul to fill him in on what was happening. We talked for hours and he promised to fly down and visit as soon as it was all over.

The next couple of weeks dragged by with less and less work for me to do and I idled away the time sitting talking to Hank in front of the gas station store. When finally Monday eighteenth May arrived, I took out the crisp white shirt and dark suit and tie I had bought for Dad's funeral and worn only on that occasion. It seemed strange putting them on again, but it almost felt like Dad was with me. I added shiny new shoes and tied my hair in a neat ponytail. I was at the court building by eight-thirty and found Dave already outside with a pretty redhead whom he introduced as his wife, AnnaBeth.

It was a very long day. My two customers who had the brake problems were questioned first. The one who had hit his own garage door said he had used my services a number of times and could never fault my work in the past, so he had been surprised when the brakes had failed. The second guy began by saying I had clearly done a shoddy job on his car, but eventually he calmed down and said he had in fact had another car worked on by me on two occasions and never had a problem. He added that in comparison to Gillespie's where he had gone before I opened up, I was more efficient, I did what I said and I didn't rip him off with over-inflated prices.

Dave was up next, explaining how Luke Stewart had asked him to break into my shop and tamper with cars that were in for work on their brakes. He added that he had refused at first until Stewart threatened to fire him and ruin his chances of getting another job in the town. Finally I had to stand up myself and give evidence.

Stewart sat in the front with a scowl on his face, accompanied by a lawyer and I had spotted Jodie sitting at the back, holding hands with a smart looking young man who I guessed was Michael. The whole thing was laborious, going over and over the same questions, just worded differently. When it was eventually Stewart's turn to be questioned, he insisted he wasn't guilty despite all evidence against him such as Dave's testimony, but eventually his temper got the better of him.

"Jacob Black deserves everything he got and more!" he cried. "Messing with my little girl! Damned dirty Native!"

There were gasps of horror from a number of people, not least Jodie, who jumped out of her seat.

"Don't you dare bring me into this, Dad!" she exclaimed. "Jacob behaved like a perfect gentleman towards me. Just because we broke up doesn't give you the right to cause trouble for him! And I never knew you were a racist! I'm ashamed of you!"

"Miss Stewart! Please sit down and be silent!" ordered the judge.

Jodie sat down, her face red and Michael slid his arm around her. The afternoon dragged on during which Stewart revised his statement and admitted he had pressured Dave into fixing my customers' vehicles' brakes. At last a halt was called to the proceedings and everyone was instructed to return at nine o'clock the next morning to wrap things up and make a decision on Stewart's fate. As I left the court, John Fordham, the guy who had an accident, caught me up. He apologised for the trouble his actions had caused me and advised he would be withdrawing his claim against me, asking his insurers only to seek reimbursement for the damage to his car and the other party's vehicle as a result of the accident.

I called Paul when I got home and told him how it had gone.

"We have to go back in the morning," I said. "It's not finished yet, but it looks like it's going to work out ok for me. I'm guessing it'll be in the papers by tomorrow night and hopefully that'll bring my customers back."

The following morning a brief outline of the evidence given was read out and then it was wrapped up quickly. The judge ordered Stewart to pay damages to me in the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars for what he considered a reasonable amount for the work I had lost and was likely to continue losing until word got around again that I hadn't been at fault. He was furious at the outcome, but did nothing other than grumble under his breath. He was fined too, but I had stopped listening by then and waited only for the case to be dismissed so I could escape.

I talked to Dave briefly and then drove over to the shop. I wrenched my tie off as I drove and minutes later I was parking up in my usual place. There was no sign of Hank, but a car was parked by the building so I guessed he must be in the store with a customer.

I unlocked the workshop and went in, only intending to grab the order book and take it home until someone called me again as I had nothing booked in for the next week.

"You look good in a suit."

I spun around in disbelief. He had said he would fly down at the weekend.

"Paul!"

He grinned. "Thought I'd surprise you."

I hesitated for a few more seconds; just long enough to ask myself what the hell I was doing standing there when the person I loved most in the whole world was ten feet away from me. I did love him, I realised. It had been creeping up on me since he visited before, since I let him go like the fool I was, since we talked on the phone every day getting to know each other better than we ever had before.

I charged towards him and threw myself into his arms. He hugged me tightly, kissing my neck, pulling the elastic band off my hair to run his hand through it.

"I'm so glad you're here!" I said.

I drew back a few inches and brushed my lips against his. His hand gripped the back of my neck and suddenly his mouth covered mine and his tongue thrust in. We kissed long and hard until we were both breathless. It was me who pulled back again, my heart hammering. I knew I should have said what I was about to say a long time ago.

"I love you," I whispered.

"I love you too." He held me tighter again for a moment and then I took a step away.

"Let's get out of here."


	12. Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

Paul got into the rental car and began reversing into the street as I reached the truck. Hank, who was leaning against the wall of his store, pushed himself away from it and walked over to me.

"Hey, Jake."

I paused and looked at him.

"You know, I really hope you lied about that Paul guy being your brother."

"What? Why?" I said, puzzled.

"Because if you're kissing your brother like that, you got worse problems than I thought." He cocked one eyebrow and pursed his lips up.

"Oh, shit," I muttered, feeling my face colouring up. He had seen us. "He's...um...he's a friend. It was true about us not getting along when he first turned up, though."

Hank shrugged. "Look, I don't give two hoots what you get up to. It's your business if you like a fella, but there's a fair few folks 'round here that ain't too fond of that sort of thing, so I wouldn't be making it too obvious at your work place if you want business to pick up again."

"Thanks for the warning," I grunted, my face burning hotter still.

I climbed into the truck and quickly drove after Paul as he headed for the house. We arrived in minutes and I hurried to the door and unlocked it. Paul had brought a slightly larger bag with him this time and he took it into the living room and dropped it by the end of the couch, then turned to wrap his arms around me. His lips touched mine and suddenly I was longing for him, my pulse rapidly speeding up and my dick stiffening in the loose suit pants. Paul slid the jacket off my shoulders and dropped it onto a nearby chair, then began to unfasten my shirt. We continued kissing, tongues entwining as he unbuckled my belt and I put my hands on his chest. He was wearing a buttoned shirt for once rather than a t-shirt and I undid part of it, then jerked the fabric apart in my impatience, sending several of the remaining buttons flying off in all directions.

Paul pulled his mouth away from mine, laughing. "You really have missed me."

"I want you," I groaned.

All I could think about was the last time he was here with me; the way he touched me; the way it felt with his dick inside me. I shuddered and dropped my head forward, pressing my face into his neck. He lowered the zipper on my pants and pushed them down, then quickly unfastened his jeans. I sat down on the edge of the couch and removed shoes and socks, pulled the pants off completely and then wriggled out of my shorts. My erection stood up straight against my stomach, twitching impatiently as I watched Paul taking off the rest of his clothes. He was as hard as I was and in a few seconds he was pushing me down onto my back, lowering his body onto mine, kissing me again as he rested between my thighs, grinding himself against me.

The way I was feeling, I wouldn't have been surprised if I came without him even touching me properly. With everything that had been going on over the past few weeks - the stress and worry - I hadn't even thought about sex, but now it was all over and he was here, suddenly I couldn't wait. I broke the kiss, moaning my frustration as I squirmed beneath him. He pulled away from me and dropped onto his knees on the carpet beside the couch and for a moment I was disappointed until he grabbed me by the waist and drew me down beside him.

"Turn around," he said, reaching for his bag. He pulled out lube and a condom and I turned away, resting my elbows on the cushions, my legs apart, closing my eyes with a groan as he reached around me with one arm, grasping my dick and stroking it slowly while he carefully inserted one cool, slippery finger into me from behind.

"Oh, God," I gasped, sinking lower so that my forehead rested on the couch, making myself relax as much as I could as he added a second finger. It felt better than I remembered, maybe because the first time I had been tense, scared, not sure if I should have been letting it happen. Now I just couldn't wait for him to...

"...fuck me," I whispered.

He withdrew his fingers and took his hand off my dick and I heard him rip open the condom packet, roll it onto himself and squirt out more lube. Then he was nudging against me, guiding himself, pushing forward until the head slipped in. He took his time, tormenting me and I reached down with one hand and grasped my erection, sliding my hand up and down slowly, much as I was tempted to start jacking off at top speed. I groaned again as Paul slid deeper, as far as he could go until his thighs rested against the back of mine. He rested his hands on my hips, holding me firmly as he drew back and then began to thrust in and out, slowly at first, then faster and harder. He was panting for breath just as I was and as I pumped myself more vigorously I knew I was going to last barely a minute. I tried to control myself just a few more seconds, but it was a losing battle and I began to spurt into my hand and onto the couch in front of me. Paul was right with me, holding himself deep in me, jerking and shuddering as he came, then withdrawing quickly and removing the condom before he pulled me away from the couch and into his arms.

"I love you," he panted. "So much."

"I love you too," I murmured.

We stayed sitting there on the carpet, just holding each other for some time. Then eventually we hauled ourselves up and went to take a shower together, taking our time lathering each other in shower gel, teasing each other, kissing and stroking, eventually jerking each other off as the hot water turned to cold, not even noticing the change in temperature. By the time we could bring ourselves to leave each other alone long enough to get dressed again, it was late in the afternoon and I realised I was starving hungry. I had eaten only intermittently over the past week and suddenly craved a proper meal.

"Are you hungry?" I asked, fastening my jeans.

"Yeah, for you," grinned Paul.

"Shut up." I shoved him playfully.

"Yeah, I'm hungry. What have you got to eat?" He stepped closer and kissed my neck, then sank his teeth in gently.

"Um...uh..." What had he just asked me? Food. "Probably not much," I said. "I've forgotten about food and shopping just lately. I'll look in the freezer. We could always order takeout."

I pulled away from him reluctantly and went into the kitchen to check the freezer. There was a pack of ground beef in there that I had forgotten and some garlic bread. I knew I had pasta in one of the cupboards.

"You want spaghetti?" I suggested.

"Yeah, if you're going to cook it. Leave the coffee to me, though." Paul slid his arms around me from behind and nibbled my ear. "Would you believe me if I told you this is probably the happiest day of my life?"

"Yeah, I guess I can. I know it's mine," I said, feeling my cheeks warming up. I leaned back against him. "How long are you staying?"

"I don't know, what day is it? Tuesday? I can stay until after the weekend; maybe fly back Monday again."

"Mmm," I sighed. Five days and six nights. I meant to make the most of every minute, but I knew that when he eventually had to go back it was going to hurt a lot more than anything I'd had to go through so far. The only good thing about him leaving was that I knew it would only be temporary. Whatever happened we would be together eventually.

"What are you thinking?" he whispered.

"That I'll come to La Push for a visit soon," I said. "In a few weeks. If business picks up I'm going to have a guy working for me, so once he's settled in he can take care of things for me."

"You're really going to come back?" Paul said, sounding surprised and delighted.

"Yeah. For a week maybe. Suddenly I miss everybody. I've been talking to Sam quite a bit too."

"I know, he said." Paul let go of me and went to lean against the kitchen counter. "Did he tell you they named their boy after you?"

"Yeah," I grinned. "I didn't expect that. For a long time I thought everyone was probably pissed at me for disappearing."

"No, they all just worried about you."

"Does Sam know you're here?" I asked him.

"No. He'd only ask questions and I didn't want to tell him what's really going on just yet. I guess I will when you come to visit."

We continued chatting as I defrosted the beef in the microwave, pulled out a pan and a bottle of olive oil and began frying up garlic and onions. There was a packet of unopened spaghetti in one of the cupboards and I dumped it into a pan and poured in boiling water from the kettle. Paul helped himself to a beer from the refrigerator and passed one to me. I gulped it intermittently whilst adding the beef to the pan, then passata and herbs, spreading out the garlic bread onto a tray and putting it into the oven.

"I always cheat and buy sauce in a jar," Paul confessed.

"That's why my spaghetti is better than yours," I teased. "Here." I dipped a spoon into the sauce and held it out to him. He tasted it and grinned.

"Mmm...ok, it's better than mine. You should move in with me and be my chef."

"Fuck off, I'd only cook half the time, you'd have to at least do something," I joked, turning back to stir the sauce again.

"I can think of plenty of ways to reward you," Paul said.

Shit, were we really joking about moving in together? My heart hammered and I immediately began to imagine what it would be like waking up with him every morning, eating together, sharing a house together - perhaps my old house. Would I really want to move back to La Push again? Give up my business, such as it was at the moment? 'Woah, Jacob, don't get ahead of yourself, you haven't even been back for a visit yet,' I told myself.

We ate together on the couch and then switched on the television, got a couple more beers and spent the evening snuggling together. I couldn't get the idea about living with him out of my head and pretended to myself that we really were. We had five days, I didn't have to think about him leaving yet.

We went to bed at ten, Paul grabbing his bag which was still by the couch and following me to my room.

"You're not going to make me sleep in the guest room again, are you?" he teased.

"Yeah, of course, you're a guest, aren't you?" I said, trying to keep a straight face.

"Ok, then." He turned towards the other room. "I don't care, you snore anyway."

"I do not snore!" I exclaimed.

"How would you know when you're asleep?"

"Well, if I do, I guess you'll have to put up with it." I snatched his bag out of his hand and took it into my own room. Grinning, he followed me and shoved the door closed after him.

When I woke the next morning, it was completely different from the last time I'd slept with him. I opened my eyes slowly and the first thing I saw was Paul's chest. He was lying on his back, one arm under me, my head on his shoulder. I smiled to myself and didn't move, watching his chest rising and falling slowly as he breathed.

Eventually after a few minutes I slid quietly away from him and went to use the bathroom, clean my teeth and have a quick freshen up. Paul was still sleeping when I returned to my room and I bent over and brushed my lips against his. His eyes popped open at once and he grabbed me in his arms, pulling me down onto him.

"Morning." He kissed me warmly, then rolled me onto my back and pulled away. "Stay there. Don't move a muscle." He got up and disappeared into the bathroom.

I stretched my arms out either side of me and grinned up at the ceiling as I waited for him to come back. It was barely seven o'clock and unless I got a phone call, I didn't plan on going into work. We didn't drag ourselves out of bed until nine and then it was only as far as the bathroom for another shower. I was just towelling myself dry when my phone did ring. It was Hank.

"Have you seen the papers?"

"No, I...uh..." I didn't really want to tell him I only just got out of bed, he'd probably guess what I'd been doing. "I haven't been out yet," I finished.

"You're on the front page. Well, Stewart is. They've made him look like a real jerk. I wouldn't be surprised if you start getting some calls for work again."

"Good, I hope so," I said. "I'll pick a copy of the paper up later."

Paul and I had coffee and then in the absence of any breakfast foods in the house, went out to a diner for brunch and then to the supermarket to stock up on groceries. I picked up a copy of the paper and Paul drove the truck back to the house while I read the article out loud. We were just pulling into the driveway when my cell rang again.

"Jacob, it's George Deakins," the voice on the line said. My first ever customer. He'd been back twice since then for various works.

"Hello, Mr Deakins."

He explained he had seen the article in the paper and also heard about my trouble beforehand. He wasn't surprised at Stewart's antics and asked me to book his car in for new tyres on Friday. As soon as I hung up, I had another call - a job for Monday from another customer who apologised for not turning up for his booking during the trouble.

By the end of the day I was booked out for most of the following week, several of the jobs being for people who had cancelled Gillespie's after having read the paper. After I finished making the last booking, I called Dave and told him he had a job starting Monday morning if he wanted it. He was delighted and promised to work hard and prove I was doing the right thing by hiring him.

Luckily I didn't actually get any jobs for that week, except for Mr Deakins' tyres on Friday, so I was still able to spend almost every minute with Paul. It wasn't until Sunday that I let myself think about him leaving again and then I found I was glancing at the clock repeatedly, thinking the time was going much too fast.

I picked half-heartedly at dinner that night. We ordered pizza and I noticed Paul didn't seem to have much of an appetite either. Eventually he gathered up the pizza boxes and reached out to put them on the coffee table, then scooted along the couch towards me and wrapped his arms around me.

"You look sad," he said.

"I don't want you to go," I said at once. "I don't want you to leave me." I wanted to cry and held it back with difficulty.

"I know, I don't want to go either," Paul said, hugging me tighter. "It's going to be so hard driving away."

"I'm going to visit real soon, I promise," I said. "As soon as Dave is ok to run things for a little while on his own."

"I'll be waiting; doesn't matter how long it takes you."

"I love you," I said. "I never thought I'd say that to anybody."

"I'm glad it's me."

We spent another couple of hours cuddling each other on the couch before heading for bed. Our last night together for a while. All week we had pounced on each other almost desperately as if each time would be the last chance we'd get, but now it really was the last chance and we took our time, holding each other, kissing, making love gently and finally falling asleep in each other's arms.

When I opened my eyes just after six-thirty in the morning, he was gone.


	13. Chapter 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"Paul?"

I sat up quickly, knowing without waiting for an answer that he had already left. Even so I slid out of bed and looked around the house before glancing out of the window and confirming that the rental car was gone. I suddenly felt empty and lost; breathless as if I had been punched. He was gone and it hurt like hell. I found the note sticking out from behind Garfield on the refrigerator door a minute later.

'Jacob, I'm sorry to just leave, but I'm lousy at goodbyes. It would have been too hard to tear myself away from you.'

I knew how he felt. I imagined watching him leave, thinking I probably would have thrown my arms around him and begged him not to go. My eyes filled with tears and the rest of the note blurred too much to continue. I grabbed the dish towel from the oven door handle and used it to wipe my eyes, then looked at the note again.

'Walking away kills me. I love you with all my heart and I meant it when I said I would pack up and leave La Push if you want me to. I hope you'll visit soon though. I'll call you tonight. Paul. x'

"Shit," I muttered and burst into tears. I was tempted to grab a few things, jump in the truck and follow him to Austin, then get on a plane and never look back. Maybe one day soon I would do exactly that, but right now I somehow had to get myself together and go to work.

I managed to get myself to the shop by eight o'clock and found Dave waiting at the door for me. Hank was busy dispensing gas. I opened up, checked the order book and discovered the first job was coming in at ten. I spent the time showing Dave where everything was and talking to him to establish how much he had already learned at Gillespie's. He had been there under a year, but already knew plenty. He would soon be quite capable of running things while I took off for a week.

I glanced at the clock for the hundredth time that morning, wondering where Paul was. He must have reached Austin some time ago. Was he on a plane yet or waiting for the noon flight? I pulled my phone out, tempted to call him, but I guessed his cell would be switched off and I could hardly talk to him with Dave around, especially when I knew I would start crying again. I put the phone away with a sigh and went out to greet the first customer.

The day seemed interminable. I let Dave take an hour for lunch, but I carried on working through. I didn't want to sit around thinking. I went over to get a coke from Hank.

"Hell, what's with you?" he asked, staring at my face.

"What? Nothing."

"You look like someone killed your Ma."

"It's nothing," I repeated.

"Uh huh. Your...friend gone home, has he?" He raised one eyebrow.

"Yeah." I turned away and went back to work.

When I finally got home just after six that night and looked in the mirror, I saw what Hank had been seeing, and Dave too no doubt although he hadn't said anything. I was pale, my eyes huge and dark and I looked completely miserable. I was completely miserable. My heart ached. I took my phone out again and just as I was about to call Paul, he called me. I answered immediately.

"Paul! I was just going to call you," I said.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry I just left. I almost turned around and came back when I got to Austin."

"It's ok. I don't think you'd have got away at all if you woke me up," I said sadly. "I miss you so much."

"Me too." He cleared his throat and sniffed. "How's that new guy working out? Dave?"

"Good. He knows a lot already so I'll be able to get away much sooner than I thought. Maybe a month?" I wished I could get away in a week. A month seemed like an impossible length of time.

We talked on the phone for the rest of the evening. I almost felt better when I could hear his voice, but as soon as we hung up and I went to bed, loneliness overwhelmed me. The bed smelled of him and he had left one of his t-shirts on the floor beside it. I was plenty warm enough as always, but I picked it and put it on regardless. I didn't know how I was going to stand being twenty-five hundred miles away from him now. After those five days together, everything had changed. He had said he would give everything up and move to be with me, but I had already begun to feel the same. I knew I would probably go back to La Push now if he wanted me too, however hard it was - so long as we were together it didn't matter any more.

The rest of the week passed by slowly. Sunday was the worst day, with absolutely nothing to do other than sit around thinking about Paul. We talked on the phone early in the morning when we were still in bed and then several more times throughout the day, but phone calls were no longer enough. I needed him with me, holding me, kissing me, even just sitting next to me watching television and not saying a word. I didn't even have a photo of him or anything, but I wasn't sure whether being able to see his face would make it better or worse. I guess I could have asked him to text me a picture, but somehow I didn't.

Another week crawled by. We were a week into June and Dave was proving to be a Godsend. I looked at the calendar and made a decision. Friday nineteenth June I would bite the bullet and fly to Seattle, rent a car and drive over to La Push. I would stay a week. It would let me see how I felt about being there again. It would make more sense for me to go back, rather than drag Paul away from everything too. I had my business which I would have to leave behind of course, but Paul's whole life was in La Push - including my old house which suddenly I was excited about seeing again. That night when I called Paul, I told him of my plans. He told me he was missing me so much it hurt and I smiled as I answered.

"I'll be there in less than two weeks!"

"What? You're going to visit? Seriously?" he cried.

"Yeah! A week from next Friday. Dave is clearly capable of handling everything at work, so..."

"Oh my God!" Paul interrupted. "Jake, you have no idea how much I wanted this. I didn't want to keep going on about it, but I want you here, with me, even if it's only a few days."

I laughed. "Well, I'll be there a week. I'll get the noon flight on the Friday. Do I need to book a seat?"

"No, the times I've been on it, it was only just over half full," he said. "I'll drive over to Seattle and meet you; then you won't have to rent a car."

We continued talking about it for a while and I began to get more and more excited. However, I was still a little nervous about seeing everybody again.

"Paul, do me a favour, will you?" I said. "Don't tell everyone I'm coming."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because I don't want them all to suddenly turn up in force when I get there and overwhelm me. I just want to go over and see Sam and Emily first and then catch up with the others. Is that ok?"

"Sure, anything, I really don't care so long as you're coming," Paul said at once.

The next day I told Dave about my plans.

"I'm going away for a week, next Friday," I began. "You reckon you can cope?"

"Sure!" he said at once. "We haven't had anything in so far that I couldn't have handled. You can trust me, everything will be fine."

"Great." I handed him a set of keys. "I'll give you a bonus since you'll effectively be the boss."

"Thanks! So where are you going?"

"Washington. To see my old friends," I said. "It's been much too long."

"You might not want to come back," Dave said.

"Quite possibly," I grinned. "No, it's just a week. I haven't been back since I came here. It's going to seem pretty strange being there again."

Strange, but wonderful, I thought to myself. And I still had eleven days to wait until I could go.

Another week passed and the following Tuesday, just when I was beginning to think Friday would never arrive, something happened to take my mind off my excitement at least a little bit. I arrived at work just before eight as usual. Dave was already there, just unlocking the door. There was no sign of Hank, although he usually opened the gas station at seven. The store appeared to be closed up, the lights off and I wondered if he could be sick. I had a key for the building and I went over and opened up as a number of cars began arriving to fill up before heading off to work.

I served nine customers with gas and was just about to call Hank to find out where he was, when I heard a slight sound from the back rooms behind the store. There was a small office and washroom back there and I opened the connecting door and looked through. I heard a rough cough and then vomiting.

"Hank?"

"What!" The toilet flushed and he lurched out of the small room, leaning on the wall. He looked terrible, as if he had spent all night drinking.

"What the hell happened to you?" I asked.

"What's it look like?" he grunted.

"I meant, what happened to make you drink yourself sick?"

"Mind your own fucking business." He pushed past me and shuffled into the store.

"Hank! Jesus." I grabbed his arm and pulled him back through the door as I spotted a customer park up by the gas pumps. "Stay here," I said, closing the door on him again while I went out to dispense more gas. What on earth could have happened to him? With the customer gone, I shouted over to Dave at the workshop.

"If anyone else comes in for gas, will you sort them out?"

"Sure." He appeared in the doorway. "Where's Hank?"

"Drunk out of his mind. I'm going to take him home." I went back into the store and much to my horror, found Hank opening up a fresh beer.

"Don't drink any more, for God's sake," I protested, trying to grab the bottle.

"Hair of the dog," he grinned and gulped some.

"You're not in a fit state to be at work. Come with me."

I began ushering him out of the store towards my truck and after a brief protest, he shut up and climbed into the seat, slouching there drinking while I drove over to his house. When I parked on the drive, I saw that the door was standing open and all the lights on. Hank's truck was on the front lawn and I guessed he must have walked over to the gas station some time the previous night.

"What happened?" I asked him again. "Where's Tammy?"

"Gone," he slurred. "Gone all the way to hell. Fucking bitch." He stepped down from the truck, stumbled and fell on his knees, then hauled himself up again and staggered into the house. I followed quickly and headed straight for the kitchen to make coffee.

"Did you two have a fight?" I asked him.

"Huh? No. She left me."

"What? Why? Have you done something?" I dumped a heaped spoonful of coffee into a mug and made it black.

"Why the fuck's it gotta be me that's done something?" he growled.

"I'm just asking, Hank. You two were made for each other."

"That's what I thought. Not her. Nope. Tammy found somebody better. Collar and tie fella with a fancy car. Never thought her head'd be turned by money," he said bitterly.

"I'm sorry," I said, passing him the coffee.

"What the hell is this?"

"Coffee. Drink it. You need to sober up."

"Yeah, I guess. Beer ain't helping." He leaned against the kitchen wall and sipped the coffee. "Sorry to drag you into this. Guess you got our own misery to worry about."

"No, I'm ok," I said, deciding not to rub it in by adding that I was going to Washington in less than three days. My heart leaped again at the thought.

I stayed another half hour with Hank and then headed back to work after telling him I would watch the pumps all day and that I didn't want to see him until the following morning. He did exactly that and seemed better on Wednesday, although he worked his way slowly through a good number of beers. I noticed at least seven or eight empty bottles underneath his deckchair by the end of the day, but he didn't seem drunk. I wasn't too sure that he should be driving, but he left in his truck and from what I could see, managed to keep it in a straight line down the road until he disappeared out of sight.

I talked to Paul for a couple of hours that evening and I could hear the excitement in his voice as we talked about my arrival there on Friday. In only forty-eight hours I would be with him, sleeping with him in my old bed and I didn't know how I was going to get any sleep between now and then. Only one more day at work to get through and then I would be leaving everything in Dave's hands. I only hoped he wasn't going to get any trouble with Hank in my absence.

On Thursday Hank wasn't there when I reached the shop. Two cars were waiting for gas and I hurriedly opened up the store and went to serve them, explaining that Hank had been sick on and off that week and was probably having another bad day. He eventually rolled up at around ten-thirty. Dave and I were busy inside the workshop when we heard an engine and guessed it would be the truck that was booked in for its service that morning - until it lurched onto the parking area beside the store and hit one of the trashcans there.

"Shit," I muttered, looking out of the door as Hank fell out of the truck and staggered into the store. He came out a moment later with more beer and sank into his deckchair and I went over to talk to him.

"Jake, leave me 'lone," he grumbled.

"You shouldn't be here," I told him. "You're a mess."

"It's my business." He waved his arm around to indicate the store and the pumps. "Literally." Then he began to laugh, almost hysterically.

There wasn't much I could do about it. Dave and I had a stack of work to get through and it was my last day. I kept an eye out for customers wanting gas and went out to serve them, but otherwise I left Hank to his own devices. When Dave went off for lunch I continued to work through although I paused briefly to grab a bag of chips from Hank's store to at least go part of the way towards filling my empty stomach.

I paused to answer the phone and take a booking and while I was doing that, a guy turned up for gas. Hank lurched out of his seat and stumbled over to the pump and I watched in alarm as he jammed the nozzle into the car's tank to fill it up. A cigarette was hanging from his lower lip as usual, but amazingly he filled up the car and the customer left without incident. I heaved a sigh of relief, which quickly turned to a gasp of horror when I noticed what happened next. Hank fumbled the pump back into its holder, squeezing the trigger in the process and spraying gas over his own feet and the ground. I could see what was coming almost as if I were watching a movie in slow motion that I'd already seen before. The remains of the cigarette dropped out of his mouth into the spilled gas and up it went. Flames danced up around him and he threw himself backwards with a scream.

"Damned drunken fool!" I hissed as I bounded out of the shop towards him, pulling my shirt off to smother the flames. I grabbed Hank by the arm and dragged him away from the puddle of gas first, then covered his legs with my shirt, patting it to put the fire out while he howled and writhed about. I could feel my hands scorching and did my best to ignore it.

"Jake!" he gasped suddenly.

"Shut up, you idiot." He was no longer on fire, but his pants legs were in tatters and the flesh underneath red and charred. He must have been in agony. My hands and arms were livid and blistered too.

"The pump!"

"What?" I turned to look and noticed the nozzle hanging loose from its bracket, the end trailing in the burning puddle. "Move!" I hoisted Hank up quickly and slung him over my shoulder, then began to run in the direction of the workshop. One stride...two...three...

I felt the blast come from the side and as it lifted me off my feet, Hank's body flew out of my arms and I hurtled towards the workshop wall. My shoulder hit first and I felt it pop out of the socket from the impact. A number of ribs cracked too and then I slumped into a heap at the foot of the wall. I was still conscious, aware of the agony caused by the broken bones and the burns and I could feel the tremendous heat from the pump. I forced my eyes to open and saw a huge jet of fire shooting into the sky, sucking the oxygen from the air around me so that it hurt to breathe. My lungs and my face were burning and I wondered if I would suffocate first or burn to death. I closed my eyes again and felt myself slip away.


	14. Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

When I opened my eyes again I was horrified to find that I was in the hospital. I seemed to be looking out through a tunnel, only able to see forwards and I realised my face was mostly covered by bandages with only my eyes and the end of my nose uncovered, a slit left for my mouth. I lifted a hand off the bed and held it up in front of me, noticing it was bandaged to the elbow. My right shoulder was strapped to my side, immovable and I guessed they must have put it back in the socket and taped it along with the damaged ribs. Several wires attached me to a monitor next to the bed, which bleeped rapidly along with my heartbeat and a figure in one corner showed by temperature - 108.1. Fantastic. It would only be a matter of time before the doctors started going crazy, wondering how I could still be alive with a temperature three or four degrees higher than that of a severe fever. Just as I was thinking this, two nurses rushed in carrying ice packs, whipped the sheet off me and began stacking them around and over my torso.

"He's awake," one of them observed immediately.

"Dr Silva!"

A doctor appeared and gave instructions on giving me morphine.

"I'm fine, I don't need morphine," I protested, my voice coming out as a mumble and then sending me into paroxysms of coughing.

"Don't try to talk, you've sustained some damage to your lungs from the heat," I was told.

"What day is it?" I asked, ignoring the request.

"Friday."

"What time?" Oh, shit, how long had I been out?

"It's just after midnight, Jacob."

Oh, God. In twelve hours I was supposed to be on a plane and here I was about to become an experiment. It wouldn't be long before they decided to change my dressings or something and realised I was healing impossibly fast. I had to get out of there, but how?

"The ice is just melting," a nurse's voice said. "His temperature doesn't seem to be coming down at _all_."

"Fetch more ice, apply it to the neck and groin as well," the doctor instructed.

"Dr Silva! Emergency!" an announcement interrupted and the doctor gave orders to the nurses to call him back if anything changed with me; then he was gone. One nurse followed, presumably to get more ice, and the other just kept looking at me curiously.

"Help! Someone help! He's having some kind of fit!"

A hysterical female voice came from another area of the room and after a moment's hesitation, apparently unsure as to whether I could be left, the nurse beside me darted off. I was alone and I probably had only seconds. I sat up, moving my upper body experimentally. Nothing hurt; my bones must have already healed. I grabbed at the strapping with my left hand, pulled it loose enough to get my other arm free and swung my legs off the bed. I noticed I was wearing only my own underwear, the rest of my clothes having been removed. I knew I was going to be awfully conspicuous and was probably going to get caught, but I wrenched the monitor wires off my chest and pulled the needle out of the back of my hand which was attached to a saline drip. If only I was in Forks. Carlisle Cullen would have treated me and I wouldn't have all of these problems.

I ran towards the doors at the end of the room and pushed through them. People were everywhere and I dodged into a side room - a linen cupboard. Perfect. Piles of fresh sets of scrubs lay on one of the shelves and I pulled on a pair of pants and a top. If only there was a mirror in there. My bandages would draw immediate attention to me, but what did I look like underneath? None of the pack had ever suffered burns, so I didn't know how fast it would heal, whether there would be scars. I began unwrapping the bandages from my left arm, hardly daring to look. Underneath gauze sheets had been placed on my skin to stop the bandages sticking and when I peeled these off, although the flesh was no longer red and blistered, there were horrendous scars - the hand and arm were almost white in contrast to my normal russet colour and the skin was alternately puckered and stretched shiny and tight over my flesh. I didn't even want to think about what my face looked like.

I removed the bandage from my other arm and then began to unwrap the layers from my head. I would put a surgeons mask and hat on and hope for the best. I could already hear the commotion outside as the nurses realised I was missing and when I opened the door a minute later, the corridor was quieter, several people having rushed into the room I had recently exited. A buzzer had been set off - probably the one by my bed - and a jumble of anxious voices could be heard. I turned in the opposite direction, head down, and walked swiftly towards the bank of elevators at the end, punching all the buttons and waiting impatiently. I glanced over my shoulder, but so far no one was coming towards me. A door sprang open and I stepped inside quickly and pressed the basement button. No one else stopped the car on the way down and I quickly found myself in a deserted and dimly lit corridor. A sign on the wall pointed to a laboratory in one direction and the parking lot in the other. I turned towards the parking lot and pushed out through the door at the end into the underground lot beneath the building. Now I just had to figure out how best to get home. Walk there dressed in a surgeon's outfit, or phase and try to make it without someone seeing me and shooting me.

I made my way outside and found myself at the rear of the hospital. It was on the edge of town and much to my relief, only two hundred yards away there were trees. I looked right and left. A couple of nurses stood by an exit door smoking and chatting, but no one else was in sight. I stayed where I was until the pair finished their cigarettes and went back inside, then I sprinted off towards the trees, hoping I wouldn't be seen from any of the windows.

I made it without incident and as soon as I was amongst the trees I phased on the fly, somewhat surprised that I could still do that. I changed effortlessly, the scrubs exploding off me in small pieces as I ran. My lungs hurt and I slowed down, emitting a loud barking cough despite my efforts to breathe deep and suppress it. I stopped still and crouched beside some bushes, determinedly slowing my breathing before I continued. I knew I was about a mile from home and at a run I could have been there in less than a minute, but I couldn't afford to draw attention to myself. Instead I walked the rest of the way, keeping to the trees and taking a round-about route to conceal myself until I made it to the end of Hein Road - the furthest end from the town. Then I flew around the bend to my house and bounded down the drive to the rear. I heard nothing and it was clear I hadn't been spotted. I crouched beside the rear door, phased back, grabbed the spare key from under the step and let myself in.

The first thing I did was go to the bathroom to see what I looked like. I closed my eyes, switched on the light and stood in front of the mirror. It was twelve hours since it happened, I told myself. It couldn't be that bad by now. My arms looked pretty horrible, but they would improve, probably in less than a day. I opened my eyes slowly and almost collapsed. The left side of my face looked pretty much like my arms - white, shiny, stretched tight over my cheekbone. The hair on the left side of my head was gone, leaving my scalp looking much like my face, my left eye was red where it should have been white and my ear looked like part of it was missing.

"No, oh no, _fuck!_" I hissed.

I sat down suddenly on the toilet seat. It would get better; it had to. I looked like a monster. I couldn't let Paul see me like this. I couldn't go and get on a plane anyway, looking like something out of a horror movie. I would have to call him. My phone! It had been in my jeans pocket and where were they? Cut off me probably. What could I do? And where was _Hank?_ Oh, God, I had completely forgotten about him. Was he even alive? I shuddered and got up again. I was going to have to do something.

My mind whirled around in a panic and I went to my room to get dressed, choosing a shirt with long sleeves and a collar, which I turned up. I had a Stetson which I'd bought in Fort Worth when I first arrived in Texas; just a spur of the moment purchase that a tourist would have chosen. I'd never worn the hat, but now I put it on and pulled it low over the left side of my face. It was dark out anyway and I guessed it would disguise me well enough. I grabbed a handful of quarters from the jar in the kitchen and let myself out again. There was a public phone at the town end of Hein Road and I hurried along there, hoping no one would be out looking for me.

I called Dave. He was the only person I knew who could help me and also the only person - besides Paul - whose number was in my head. He answered after a few rings and I could hear voices in the background, echoing. He was at the hospital.

"Dave, it's Jacob."

"Oh, my God! Where are you?" he cried. "They're going...!"

"Sshh! Keep your voice down!" I exclaimed. "Go outside. I need your help."

"Sure. Ok. I'm heading for the door now." A few seconds later he reported that he was outside. "What the hell are you doing?" he asked now. "They're going crazy here. You have a temperature of 108 and third degree burns. You shouldn't have..."

"Dave, listen to me," I interrupted. "I can't really explain everything to you and I don't want you repeating this either. I have some kind of weird thing - I've always had it - where I heal much faster than normal. It's probably something to do with the high body temperature; it burns things out of me; pardon the pun. The doctor was already getting suspicious about it; I had to get out of there before I end up being an experiment with a feature on the front page of the newspaper."

"Ok..." Dave said slowly. "Is this true?"

"Yeah, it's true. My skin looks like it's been healing for a month already. Never mind that. I need my phone. Do you know where it is?"

"I have it. They gave me what they found in your pockets, but it's smashed; you must have fallen on it or something. The memory card is ok."

"Ok, well then I need you to get me another phone. And I'm going to have to dump a lot of shit on you - dealing with the insurance - whatever. I'll talk to them on the phone and give you power of attorney. I'll talk to the police too. I'll let you know what's going on in the next day or two."

"What are you doing to do?"

"Keep out of sight," I said. "How's Hank?"

"He...uh...he didn't make it, Jake, I'm sorry," Dave said.

"Shit!" I was filled with sorrow. Hank had been a pretty good friend when I had been lonely; renting me the shop, inviting me over to spend Christmas, generally just being around. Now his pain over Tammy leaving had been the end of him. The sad thing was that it had been an accident, just because he had been so drunk. I still couldn't believe Tammy had left him.

"What about the gas station and the shop?" I asked Dave.

"They're still standing, but the front walls have some damage. The fire service managed to save most of it. How did it happen?"

I explained briefly and when we finished talking, I walked home and waited for Dave to arrive with the phone he had promised. He and AnnaBeth had three cells between them and he brought me one along with its power cord and my own memory card. I still had the hat on and the lights off when I opened the door, not wanting him to see me.

"Are you sure you're ok?" he asked. "According to the doc, you should have been dead."

"I'm fine. Or I will be. Don't ask me about it, ok, it's just going to have to stay as one of those unexplainable mysteries."

He sighed heavily. "What do you want me to do now?"

"I'll call you. I don't know what's going to happen with the business. I guess it depends if Hank had a will or not, who owns the buildings. How much money is there in the cash box at the shop?"

"Over a grand. I took it home for safe-keeping."

"Keep it," I said.

"You don't have to do that..."

"Yeah, I do. You've only been working for me a month and now you're going to be out of a job again, at least for a while. Take the money and we'll figure out what to do next when we find out who owns everything."

"Ok. Thanks, Jacob."

Dave left me to it and I put my memory card into the phone he had given me and switched it on. Luckily his phone wasn't locked, otherwise I would have had another problem to sort out. I waited a few minutes and then a couple of text messages popped up. They were from Paul. He had been calling me all evening. The second message even sounded angry.

'I don't know what's going on with you, but at least have the decency to call and tell me.'

"Oh, shit," I muttered. It was approaching two o'clock in the morning and I guessed he was probably still up. I wanted to call him straight away and tell him there was no problem - that I would be there the next day as planned - but I had no idea how long it was going to take for me to look anywhere near my usual self. I couldn't let him see me the way I was. I decided the only thing I could do was wait a few hours and see what happened, then call him.

In the meantime, I found some hair clippers I had bought a long time ago and never used, deciding that I wouldn't look quite so bad if I didn't have long hair on one side of my head and none on the other. I went to the bathroom and slowly began to cut off what was left, leaving about a quarter inch of hair all over. When I stood sideways on to the mirror, only seeing the right side of my face, I almost looked normal, except for the fact that my haircut was like that of a marine or something. I'd never seen myself looking like that before and it seemed strange, but I guessed I would get used to it. My hair would grow again; I just hoped it would grow back on the other side too.

The rest of the night crawled by. I had suffered through long waiting periods before, but nothing like this. All I could think about was Paul in La Push, waiting to hear from me, wondering if I had changed my mind, angry and upset. I couldn't stop myself running to the bathroom every fifteen minutes to look in the mirror, trying to convince myself each time that I looked better. My arms did seem better; the skin looked more natural and was regaining some of its usual colour, but my face was still stretched and shiny and missing any sign of hair on that side. My ear still looked like someone had taken a bite out of it.

Finally six o'clock came and my heart plummeted as I realised it was going to take longer - much longer - than I hoped for me to be fit to be seen. I peered at myself in the mirror, noticing the redness was gone from my eye, the shininess almost gone from the skin, but I still looked awful. At least I thought I did. It wouldn't be so bad if at least some stubble would grow back and make my hair look more even. Maybe it would in a few days. In the meantime, I knew I had to call Paul. I had hoped I could just make some excuse for not answering the phone, but now I knew I would have to tell him I couldn't visit after all; at least not yet.

I found his number in the phone and pressed the call button, my heart breaking as I waited for him to answer. His phone rang several times before he picked up.

"Jacob?"

"Paul..."

"You're not coming, are you?" he said before I could continue. He sounded so terribly upset, it crushed me.

"I am, I just need a little more time," I said. That was true, but I knew he would think it was because I was nervous about going to La Push. I couldn't tell him the whole truth. If I told him about the fire, about my injuries, about Hank dying, he'd be on the first plane here and I couldn't bear for him to look at me.

"More time? Just two days ago you couldn't wait to get here. Now you need more time? What's going on?" he demanded.

"Nothing," I said. "I just...I thought I was ready to see everyone, but..." What could I say to make it sound better than me backing off? Absolutely nothing.

"Maybe you're never going to be ready! Maybe you just don't want to be; is that it?" Paul shouted suddenly, his voice cracking.

"I'm sorry!" I repeated. My eyes filled with tears. He was mad and hurt and I wanted to be with him more than anything, but I had to let him think I was just dithering, losing my nerve.

"I have never asked anything of you! Only one visit, Jacob! I'd give up everything here and live with you in Texas in a second, so would it kill you to come back for one week and see everyone? Do something for me?" He ended on a sob.

I opened my mouth to say...what? I had no idea what more I could say. I wanted to tell him I loved him, that I would be there soon, that delaying was killing me, but it was already too late. The line went dead. He had hung up on me.


	15. Chapter 15

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I sat there staring at the phone in my hand, shocked that Paul had hung up on me even though he was obviously upset and angry. I had promised I would visit; we even arranged which flight I would be on, that he would meet me in Seattle, and then the night before I was supposed to go suddenly I didn't answer the phone or call him back and I didn't even have a proper explanation. I guess I could understand him being pissed. My heart ached and I began tapping out a text message to him half a dozen times before deleting each one. He probably wouldn't answer and then I would be unable to do anything but stare at the phone, waiting for it to ring or beep. I got up and made myself some coffee and began to plan what I was going to do.

At six I called the police. Dave had told me he had already spoken to them and given them as much information as he could about what happened, which wasn't a great deal given than he hadn't been there when the fire started. I knew they wanted to talk to me and decided to get it over as soon as possible. A pair of officers came out to the house to take a statement within an hour of me calling. I wrapped my hands and arms in bandages before they arrived to make it look as if I'd at least been a little bit injured and I covered my head up with the old blue woollen hat I used to wear when I was a kid. When the cops asked me about my burns, advising that the hospital reported I had been badly injured and then walked out when they tried to treat me, I scoffed and said I had a couple of little blisters on my hands and that they had exaggerated the whole thing. Since I appeared to be in no pain, I guess they believed me. They took my statement and asked a number of questions, indicating that they were satisfied I wasn't under suspicion for anything that had happened. Apparently Hank had been pulled over for driving drunk only two days before that and his truck contained numerous empty bottles. I had told them he was depressed after breaking up with his girlfriend and they believed it had all been a tragic accident.

"Will you need to talk to me again?" I asked.

"It's possible, but a phone call should be sufficient if so," I was told.

"So am I ok to leave the State?"

"Of course. Where do you plan on going?"

"Forks, Washington," I said. "My friends and family are there."

"So long as we have a phone number for you, there's no problem with that," one of the officers said. I gave them the number and they left me alone.

I went to take another look in the mirror, pulling the hat off and examining myself closely. Maybe I was imagining it, but there seemed to be further improvement. My skin appeared to be all the same colour again except for the part of my scalp where my hair had been burnt off. There was still no sign of any stubble and I wondered if head hair grew slower than facial hair or if it was just not going to grow at all. Well, at least I didn't look completely hideous any more. I guessed in a few more days I would look more or less myself except for the hair, and there wasn't much I could do about the fact that the edge of my ear was gone.

I knew exactly what I was going to do now. I knew full well Hank didn't have a Will - we had talked about it once. I didn't have one either and we had both decided we ought to have one written in case either of us bit the dust and our belongings went to someone we didn't want them to go to. My next of kin were my twin sisters of course. Hank had a brother in Dallas; some businessman type who didn't approve of him so whether Hank wanted him to have the gas station and the workshop or not, he would get them. Whether or not he would want them to continue as they were was another matter, but it would certainly take some time to sort out. I called Dave again.

"The cops are happy for me to leave town," I said. "I'm going to Washington."

"Of course, you said you were going to visit. I'll call you if anything happens, with the shop and everything."

"Yeah, I think it'll all end up going to Hank's brother, but I don't know what he'll want to do with it."

"I'll start looking for alternative work anyway," Dave said. "I saw in the paper there's a small shop in Luckenbach wanting a mechanic. It's only nine miles away, I'm going to enquire."

"Well, if they want a reference, give them my number," I told him. "Anything I can do to help you out, you know I'll do it."

"It sounds like you're going to be gone a while. I guess it makes sense you stay longer, since we can't work or..."

"Dave, I'm not coming back," I interrupted.

My heart was hammering. I had been thinking about it since the minute Paul hung up on me although I hadn't completely decided to do it until just now. Hearing him so upset killed me and I hated being away from him. He had said he would give up everything to be with me and I knew he would, but when he pointed out I hadn't done a thing, even cancelled the one visit I had arranged, it had been a kick in the ass. It was time I did something instead of treading water and if I was honest with myself I didn't really want to drag him away from everything - he had much more to leave behind than I did.

"You're going home?" Dave gasped.

"Yeah. I never thought I'd want to, but I realised I miss everyone. And there's someone special there who I want to be with."

"Really? You never mentioned anyone. Well, that's great!" exclaimed Dave. "I hope it works out for you."

"Me too."

After I finished talking to Dave, I called the real estate office about the house. I was supposed to give them a month's notice if I wanted to leave, but after I explained about the fire and everything, they confirmed they would be willing to make an exception provided they sent someone to inspect the place on Monday and found everything in order. I agreed immediately and then set about packing my belongings into boxes and cleaning the house. I had two full days to do it and I determinedly hung a towel over the mirror in the bathroom, telling myself I would not look at my face again until Sunday night.

That evening I tried calling Paul again, but he didn't pick up. The phone rang several times and then went to voicemail. I wanted to leave a message, but I couldn't think of anything to say. If he was still too mad to talk to me, he might not even listen to it. I went to bed that night and tossed and turned, trying to sleep and worrying about everything. What if I reached La Push and he didn't even want me there? What would I do then? I immediately told myself not to be stupid. He might be mad now, but only two days ago he was waiting excitedly for me to visit, telling me he loved me. Would that really have changed just because I delayed?

"Don't be a dick," I said aloud.

My phone beeped and I jerked upright, snatching it from the bed table. A text message from Paul. I almost dropped the phone again as I fumbled with it to open the message. It was short and to the point.

'I'm sorry. I love you. Paul. x.'

"Yes!" I exclaimed. "Thank God, thank God."

Now what? Did I tell him what I was planning? I hesitated before I sent a reply. Would he even believe me if I said I was packing up and leaving? Maybe, maybe not, but he'd certainly want to know why all of a sudden I was going home and I didn't want to tell him about the fire over the phone.

'I love you too,' I tapped out. 'I will see you soon, I promise. Trust me, I won't let you down again. Jacob. x.'

'I know you won't. Talk soon.' He had added one of those daft little smiley faces blowing a kiss and I smiled at the phone. If only I didn't have to wait until Monday for the agent to check over the house. I would have been tempted to load up the truck and start driving right away. I wondered how quickly I could make it back when I wasn't aimlessly wandering like I had been when I first came here. Three days maybe?

Despite the mixture of worry about my appearance and excitement about leaving, somehow I managed to sleep. Paul called me in the morning and we talked for an hour, but I noticed he didn't mention me going to visit and I didn't either. I asked him about what he was doing instead and I talked about Dave, cringeing a little as I carefully avoided the subjects of Hank and work. I had already seen the newspaper which had the fire and Hank's death on the front page and I only hoped none of the pack would see it on the internet.

The rest of the weekend crawled by and I determinedly avoided the bathroom mirror, but I couldn't stop myself stroking my hand over my head repeatedly to see if I could feel any stubble. I kept convincing myself there was some - my face was certainly getting rough with the beginning of a beard. I hadn't bothered to shave in days and on Sunday night I decided I had better do just that and get everything ready for the morning. As soon as the agent had been to the house, I planned to give them the keys there and then and leave right away.

I pulled the towel off the mirror and peered at my reflection anxiously. I looked normal. Well, as normal as I could look with a bit of my ear missing and only a faint black fuzz of hair starting to show through my scalp on the left side. I couldn't stop myself jumping up and down and dancing around the bathroom. My hair was growing! And there were no scars. I didn't care about my ear; it wasn't that noticeable and if I grew my hair out again it would cover it up. So the wolf genes did heal burns after all - just a little slower than they healed broken bones and cuts. I stopped leaping about and grabbed my razor, shaved my face and then took a shower. Just one more night and I could leave.

As soon as I rose on Monday morning, I packed all of my belongings into the truck and covered it with a tarp, emptied the refrigerator and cupboards of food and made sure everything looked spotless. I hoped the agent wasn't going to keep me waiting too long, but much to my relief a car pulled onto the drive at ten minutes past nine and a young lady got out. She was wearing a suit and high heels and announced herself as Jessica from the real estate office. She spent about two minutes looking around without bothering to poke about too much and quickly agreed that everything was in order. She gave me an envelope containing my deposit and I handed her the keys, shoved my feet into my boots and walked out. It was as easy as that. By nine-twenty I was on the road.

I switched on the truck radio for company and simply drove, mile after mile, hour after hour, stopping only for gas and restroom breaks. I had a large bag of chips and some sweets on the seat beside me and I nibbled those to keep me going, but didn't bother stopping to eat a meal. I kept going until almost midnight, by which time the mile counter told me I had travelled over eight hundred miles. Two more days, I would be home. I had never really stopped thinking of La Push as home I realised, even after almost a year and a half away.

I parked up a little way off the road in the middle of nowhere, lay down on the truck seat and slept for a few hours, waking at dawn. Then I was driving again, impatient to finish the journey, but at the same time filled with a mixture of fear and excitement. I had talked to Paul on the phone a couple more times since Friday and almost told him the truth, stopping myself at the last minute each time. He would just worry about it and I didn't really want to tell him over the phone that I was moving back either. I wanted to do it in person; I wanted to see his face.

I drove on without a pause except for the essentials throughout Tuesday and stopped at ten in the evening, exhausted. I had covered seventeen hundred miles in total with only around four hours' sleep in the middle. I checked into a motel, took a shower and fell into a proper bed, but tired as I was I couldn't sleep properly. I managed about six hours, moving around restlessly, and then I was wide awake again, eager to get back on the road. I made myself go into the diner beside the motel and eat a good breakfast, then I set off. Eight hundred miles to go. I would make it by the evening. I called Paul, but he didn't pick up so I sent a text instead which simply said I would talk to him in the evening. Then I got behind the wheel of the truck and set off.

My heartbeat didn't seem to slow down all day, hammering with nervous excitement as I gradually drew closer and closer to Washington. I passed Portland in the late afternoon and at last there was a sign for Port Angeles. Less than three hundred miles to go. However, it was getting more and more difficult for me to stay awake and I stopped several times on that last leg of the journey to fill up on coffee and snacks in the hopes that I could keep going. Only a hundred miles now and it was an effort to keep my eyelids from drooping. I opened the truck windows, turned the radio up as loud as it would go and sipped an energy drink I had bought to make a change from the coffee.

Finally, a sign for Forks. I pulled over one last time, got out of the truck and walked about for a few minutes, shaking myself and trying to clear my head. The last thing I wanted to do was fall asleep and crash just twenty miles from home. It was approaching nine o'clock and I covered that last little section of road in just under half an hour. As I drove into La Push, strangely it seemed almost as if I had never been away. It was dark and damp and I passed no one as I headed for my old house. Two trucks were parked on the driveway and I stopped by the old workshop where I used to restore cars and bikes and hang out with Embry and Quil before we all joined the pack.

Suddenly I was terrified. Would Paul really want me? I knew I was being stupid, but I couldn't help it. I knew he had called a couple of hours ago and I hadn't answered because I'd been too keen to get back and he'd know I was driving. Now I pulled on the blue woollen hat, slipped out of the truck and walked up to the house, wondering who the second truck belonged to. Maybe a friend of his.

The living room window was lit up and I paused and peeped in before going to the door. He was in there, sprawling on the couch on his back, a beer in his hand, talking to someone across the room. I changed my position slightly and spotted a blond man wearing a sleeveless t-shirt, his arms and shoulders covered in tattoos. Who was that? I strained my ears to hear their conversation through the glass and immediately picked up the blond guy's voice.

"You know, I could fix you up with someone. You've been on your own far too long."

I ground my teeth together and waited to hear what Paul said.

"I've told you before, Jez, I'm not interested," he answered. "Anyway, I'm not on my own. I have someone, he's just out of town. He used to live in La Push actually."

I smiled as I listened.

"Where is he now?" the man named Jez asked.

"Texas."

"Wow, you know long distance relationships often don't work out, Paul."

"Yeah, thanks for the vote of confidence, Jez, I appreciate it."

"Sorry, foot in mouth. You don't seem too happy, though."

"He was supposed to be here now. He was due to fly up on Friday, but he cancelled at the last minute. He says he's coming soon, but...I don't know." Paul sighed heavily. "We talk on the phone, but he's seemed pretty weird the last few times; sort of distant."

I groaned aloud. I felt terrible for putting him through what I had and now I couldn't wait for him to see me. However, I didn't want to show myself with that friend of his there. It would be too awkward. I wanted to throw myself into his arms, but not with an audience. I returned to the truck and got into it, deciding to sit and wait until the guy left.

Despite my state of nerves, my extreme tiredness sent me to sleep within minutes. I dozed in the cab with my head resting against the window until the sound of an engine rumbling past disturbed me. I jerked awake and looked at my wristwatch quickly. Ten-thirty and the disappearing truck was the blond guy's. I jumped out quickly, staggering slightly with utter physical exhaustion. I made my way back to the house and knocked on the door. It opened within seconds.

"What did you forget, doofus?" Paul asked before he realised it was me. Then his mouth dropped open and his face lit up. "Jacob!"

"Hey," I said, smiling weakly. I stumbled forward over the step and he caught me in his arms.

"God, Jacob, what are you doing here?" he whispered, hugging me fiercely.

I held onto him tightly, sure my legs weren't going to hold me up much longer.

"I've come home."


	16. Chapter 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"Home? What do you mean? For good?" Paul sounded partly excited and partly disbelieving.

"Mmm. Yeah," I mumbled. My face was pressed into his neck and I was almost asleep standing up.

"Hell, Jake, did you drive all the way here? When did you set off?"

"Uh...Monday...I think."

My knees sagged and I felt him sweep me off the floor into his arms; then I was dead to the world. When I next opened my eyes it was broad daylight and Paul was sitting cross-legged on the bed watching me. I blinked and yawned.

"What day is it?"

"Thursday. Noon. You've been out for thirteen hours." He grinned at me. "I can't believe you're here."

"I've so much to tell you," I began, pulling myself up slowly.

"Wait, I'll get you some coffee first and something to eat."

Paul leaped up and left the room quickly; in fact he almost bounded out of the room. I got up and went to the bathroom to use the toilet and take a quick shower. By the time I returned to the bed wearing a pair of Paul's shorts I had found in the bathroom cupboard, he had produced a plate of bacon, beans and toast and a large mug of steaming coffee.

The smell of the bacon immediately made by stomach rumble and I dug in with gusto, much as I was eager to talk. I cleared the plate in less than five minutes and gulped some coffee. I had forgotten about my appearance until Paul spoke.

"Why did you cut your hair? I've never seen it that short."

I grimaced. "Do you hate it?"

"Of course I don't hate it. It looks a little uneven, but you know, you're beautiful to me inside and out, whatever you do with your hair or anything else."

"Shut up," I smirked. I could feel myself blushing.

"So tell me - what happened?"

"It's a really long story. Starting on Thursday afternoon. Actually, I should say that when I told you I lost my nerve and I needed more time, it was an excuse. I was dying to see you, but..."

"Why'd you lie?" Paul's face fell.

"Sshh, I'm getting to it."

I went back to the beginning, starting with Tammy breaking up with Hank and him drinking himself stupid. As I described the fire, the colour drained out of Paul's face and he reached out to grab my hands.

"God, Jacob, you could have been killed," he groaned. "Were you hurt badly?"

"I broke some ribs and my hands and arms were burned, and the left side of my face. That's why my hair looks so hideous. Half of it was burned off so I cut the rest to make it look less obvious. And I'm missing a bit of my ear." I pulled one hand free and touched it self-consciously.

"Why didn't you tell me? I'd have got the first plane down there."

"That's why I didn't. I didn't want you to worry and I didn't want you to see me looking like that; like something out of a horror movie."

"I wouldn't have cared so long as I was with you. I love you, no matter what. Don't you know that by now?" Tears filled his eyes and he blinked rapidly. "I can't believe you went through that on your own."

I continued to describe the nurses' efforts to reduce my temperature and my escape from the hospital dressed as a surgeon, doing my best to make the story sound amusing rather than desperate. I continued with me discovering that the burns were already healed when I got home except for scarring; how I told Dave a little bit about me to explain myself; my statement to the police and the fact that Hank was dead.

"I knew then I wanted to come back," I added. "I've been thinking about it for a while actually; since your last visit. When I woke up and you'd left I knew I'd come back one day."

"You're really staying?" Paul said. "With me?"

"Yeah. If you want me."

"What do you mean, _if_ I want you? Idiot." He scooted closer and slid his arms around me. "I wanted you to live with me since the first time you let me kiss you."

"I love you," I said.

His lips touched mine and caressed gently for a long moment, but he didn't deepen it. We sat there for some time just holding each other, saying nothing else. I knew I had made the right decision coming back; I couldn't imagine being without him again even for one day.

When we eventually drew apart I noticed it was past two o'clock.

"I guess I better unpack the stuff from my truck," I said.

"I already did that this morning while you were sleeping," he grinned. "It's all in the living room. I figured if you thought better of staying with me when you woke up, the idea of having to reload the truck again might make you change your mind."

"Dickhead." I shoved him playfully. "You're stuck with me. Hey, shouldn't you be working or something?"

"I didn't go in yet. I knew I didn't have any bookings until four. I need to go in then for a couple of hours. Some jerk wants a vampire on their arm - imagine that." He pulled a face.

I laughed. "He might change his mind if he ever met the Cullens."

"You could come into Forks with me, if you want," Paul suggested. "I don't actually want to let you out of my sight yet."

"Ok, sure," I agreed at once. "Hey, did you ever fix that tiger on your leg?"

"Yeah." He pulled his pants leg up to show me the snarling face of a tiger with its front paws visible, almost as if it were springing out of his flesh.

"Wow, that's amazing! Hey, maybe you could do me one some time."

"What, a tiger?"

"No, just something."

"Sure I will, if that's what you want. Don't pick something spur of the moment, though, you have to live with it."

"I'll just pick a wolf. I'm hardly going to change my mind about that."

"I suppose it depends what colour it is," Paul said with a grin.

"Why, you think I'll regret it if I get a grey one?" I teased. "It might not be anything to do with you. I might have some secret crush on Embry or Leah for all you know."

"You better not have!" Paul exclaimed, attempting to look threatening and failing miserably.

"Why, what would you do to me?"

"Make you forget about them." He slid both arms around me, jerking my lower body forwards. From the way I was sitting, my legs ended up one either side of him. Then with one hand on my shoulder he shoved me down onto the mattress and pinned me there with his body. He was already hard and as he ground himself against me, I immediately began to stiffen too.

"I've forgotten already," I breathed. "Do we have time?"

"Trust me, if we only had two minutes there'd be plenty of time," grinned Paul. He pulled away from me and quickly began to remove his clothes, then opened up the drawer in the bed table and took out a bottle of lube. "Damnit, I don't have any condoms."

"It doesn't matter," I said at once, wriggling out of the shorts.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

"You might regret saying that." He squirted some lube into his hand and covered himself in it, shivering as he stroked himself.

"Why?" I whispered, sliding my arms around him as he lowered himself onto me.

"Because I'll probably come in about thirty seconds." He pressed himself against me and I relaxed, breathing out slowly as he slid in an inch, then another. "Fuck," he hissed.

I grinned and ran my hands down his back to his butt. He was holding himself still and I gripped tight and pulled him deeper into me, pushing my hips upwards at the same time until he was in all the way. He shuddered and groaned, trying not to move. I dug my nails into his back, biting my lip. It felt so good - the incredible heat of him and the soft smoothness of his skin, both normally separated from me by a layer of rubber. I tightened my muscles, squeezing him until he groaned again and began to move, pulling back a few inches and thrusting forward harder and deeper.

"Oh, God," I heard myself gasp. Each thrust of him into me was like pushing a button, sending me further over the edge towards orgasm and with my dick rubbing against his stomach, I knew I wasn't going to get past thirty seconds either. I didn't bother trying to hold back; Paul was already starting to tremble as he moved faster and as I let go and spurted all over myself and him, I felt him come inside me; warm and wet and delicious.

"Jesus, Jacob," he gasped in my ear, his body collapsing slowly onto mine. "I love you."

"I love you too." I hugged him tighter, not wanting him to move away, to pull out of me.

After a minute or two he lifted his head up from the pillow beside mine and looked down at me, his dark eyes filled with love. His lips brushed mine softly and then he drew away from me, grasping my hand as he slid off the bed.

"Better get another shower," he said, smirking.

I hauled myself up reluctantly, legs weak, and followed him into the bathroom. My stomach was sticky and I could feel his fluid seeping out of me and down my leg. We wouldn't be using condoms in the future, I thought to myself with a grin.

Half an hour later we were scrubbed and dressed and heading out in Paul's truck to go into Forks. I realised I had never seen his tattoo store; even before I left I had no interest in going there. We hadn't exactly been close friends and I had more important things on my mind then. Now I was fascinated and passed the time while he inked a vampire onto a young guy, by looking through the many hundreds of designs pinned up on the walls or stored in folders in the waiting area. When he finished working, the guy cheerfully handed over two hundred and eighty dollars and set off.

"Find anything you like?" Paul asked as I put down the folder I had been looking through.

"Plenty."

"If you do want one, I don't just work from existing designs," he said. "I do a lot of freehand. My tiger was just made up."

"Seriously? I never knew you were so good at art," I told him.

"You never took much notice of anything I did," he sighed, sticking his bottom lip out.

"Aww," I teased and stepped closer, wrapping my arms around his neck. "Well, I guess I'll just have to make up for it for the rest of my life."

Paul's fake pout vanished in a second and he beamed, hugging me back. "You sure about that? You might get sick of me."

"I won't," I said firmly. I realised I had never been so certain of anything before. "I found where I want to be; who I want to be with. I just wish I'd seen it before - years ago."

Paul smiled and kissed my neck. "Somehow I don't think you'd have appreciated it if I told you I had the hots for you when we were fifteen."

"I don't know, maybe I would." I kissed his ear. "So when can I get my tattoo?"

"You decided what you want already?"

"Yeah, wolves, I told you."

"You said _wolf_, singular," Paul reminded me. "You want the pack now?"

"No, just two of them."

"Wow. You know you're really going to be stuck with me if you do that."

"Yeah, I know, but I won't be changing my mind. So when can you do it?" I asked impatiently.

"Now, if you want. But I'm hungry. Let's get pizza and then start after."

"Ok."

He slipped out of the store and fetched a large Vampire Killer and a garlic bread with cheese along with a couple of bottles of coke. We locked the door and pulled the blind down before digging into the pizza. Then I sat down on one of the strangely shaped leather seats, my chest resting on the angled support so that I was in a suitable position for Paul to work on my back. I wanted the tattoo in the same place he had his - between the shoulder blades. He started with black and worked the outline, taking more than an hour over it, the design area being around ten by eight inches. Strangely I found the scratchy, burning sensation of the needle pleasant, even over the spine where the flesh was thin and it felt sharper and more painful. I guessed it must just be because Paul was doing it; the person I adored sketching a picture of him and me onto my skin.

I watched as he swapped the fine outlining needle for a thicker one for adding colour, then lined up several small plastic pots and filled them with various inks - grey, white, purple, red and brown.

"What do you want purple for?" I asked curiously.

"I thought I'd give you a black eye," Paul teased. "No, it's just for blending the grey. Shut up, I know what I'm doing."

"Sorry." I fell back into my semi-comatose state as he continued, the burning feeling a little more intense now as he worked over partially healed areas made sore from the outline. Strangely my pants were beginning to feel tight and I waited for him to stop and apply more ink to the needle before I shifted a little.

"Are you ok? You want to take a break?" Paul asked.

"No, I'm fine. Just horny," I grinned.

"I'm inflicting a million tiny stab wounds on your back and you're _horny?"_ Paul said. "Jake, you are seriously weird."

"I'm not weird. It's just...the burning and scratching and the fact that you're doing it...I don't know. It's just turning me on."

"I hope you didn't get horny when you had that tribal thing done," he grinned, looking at my arm.

"Not that I can remember."

"Damn you," he muttered then. "You talking like that is making me hard. You sure you don't want to take a break?"

"Positive. You'll have to wait," I taunted.

He growled something unintelligible and resumed working. Another hour passed and he told me he was almost done, just adding a little more shading, making the eyes more realistic.

"Maybe I should have had it done on my chest so I can actually see it," I mused.

"Now you tell me."

"I'm joking," I laughed. "Are you done yet?"

"Hold still. Two minutes." He applied white, telling me it was for lights in the eyes, then it was done. He grabbed some tissues, dampened them in the sink and wiped the dried blood from my skin. "You better like it," he threatened, passing me a mirror so that I could stand in front of the full length one on the wall and hold the other up to show myself the design.

"Oh, wow, it's awesome!" I gasped. The picture was a close up of two wolf faces, one grey and one russet, the muzzles close together, ears forward, eyes soft. "I love it." I put the portable mirror down. "Thank you."

He peeled off the surgical gloves he had been wearing and pulled me close to him.

"So are you still horny?"

"Can't you tell?"

I pressed myself more firmly against him. I had been uncomfortable and aching for some time and I immediately felt that Paul was as hard as I was. He grinned wickedly and slid his hand down to my butt.

"Want to Christen my store?"

Without waiting for an answer he began to kiss me, his tongue plunging into my mouth, his hands quickly sliding between us to unfasten my pants. We didn't even waste time undressing properly. With our jeans and underwear around our knees, he took me from behind standing up, my hands gripping the edge of one of the counters along the wall of the store. In the absence of proper lube we used Vaseline, which he had a vast supply of for tattooing purposes.

Hugely aroused for the past couple of hours, neither of us lasted very much longer than we had earlier in the afternoon. I leaned my weight on the counter, panting for breath as Paul wrapped one arm tight around me, gasping in my ear, grabbing a bunch of paper towels with his free hand to clean us up. He drew away from me then, adjusted his clothing and washed his hands.

"Yuk, I don't like Vaseline," I grimaced, pulling my jeans up.

"Well, I don't generally keep lube here, just on the off chance you might turn up and want to have sex," grinned Paul. He picked up his keys, turned the lights off and grabbed my hand in his. "Come on, let's go home."

'Home', I thought as I followed him outside. Finally I had one where I really wanted to be.


	17. Chapter 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

It was the weekend before I finally made an effort to see the rest of the pack. After we returned from Paul's tattoo store on Thursday night, all we did was fall back into bed again and take our time over each other, making love until we were exhausted and then sleeping in each other's arms.

Friday Paul went into work and I sorted out my belongings. It seemed strange and something of a relief to be hanging my clothes away in my old wardrobe. My room had been the larger out of the two bedrooms and the only thing Paul had changed about it was the bed, swapping my old narrow bunk for a king size. I took my toiletries into the bathroom, stacking them neatly in the cupboard beside Paul's, hanging my towels on the rail there.

Why hadn't I done this before now? It had taken the fire and Hank's death to kick me into gear when I had known since Paul spent a week with me where I wanted to be. Oh well - I was here now, and here I planned to stay.

With everything put away I went out to the old workshop and looked around. It was just as I left it and it seemed like it hadn't been used since. I could turn it into a proper business, I mused - just like the repair shop I'd had in Fredericksburg. People on the reservation would no doubt be glad not to have to go all the way into Forks for repairs. I would speak to Paul about it when he got home since he owned everything now, but I knew he would be all for it. I still had almost all the money from the sale of the house, plus most of the damages Luke Stewart had to pay me, so I would easily be able to do up the old shed and buy new equipment. Maybe Paul would even let me buy into the property again.

My imagination began to run away with me and I stood day-dreaming outside the building until it started to rain. Then I hurried back to the house and decided to check the kitchen cupboards to see what Paul had in for dinner. I grinned to myself as I thought about cooking a meal for when he got home.

Much to my surprise the cupboards, refrigerator and freezer were well stocked. I took out chicken, peppers, tomatoes, onions, herbs and rice and began making Cacciatore, something I had made for my Dad many times in the past. 'Hunter's chicken' had always been a favourite in our house. I even found a decent bottle of red wine in a cupboard and poured half a glass into the casserole, then sipped some. What was Paul doing buying fancy wine? He drank beer.

He returned just as I was cooking the rice, the chicken almost ready in the oven.

"Something smells good," he said. "You're cooking me dinner?"

"Yeah, but don't get used to it," I grinned.

"I see you found the wine." He wrapped one arm around me and picked the glass up to sip it. "Mmm, not bad considering I had no idea what to pick."

"I didn't even know you liked wine," I said.

"I don't mind it for special occasions. I bought that bottle for when you visited. My attempt at being romantic. When you didn't come, I didn't have the heart to open it just for me."

"Aww." I kissed his cheek. "This should be about ready."

I pushed him away from me and opened the oven door. Ten minutes later we were eating Italian chicken and rice and sipping red wine while I told him about my idea of turning the old shed into a proper workshop and running a business from there.

"You don't have to ask, it's yours as much as mine," he said at once.

"Well, technically it's yours. Unless I...um...bought back into it," I said hesitantly.

"Do you want to?"

"Yes, I want to. You know I'm not going anywhere. The money's still in the bank, I didn't spend much."

"If you really want to, then we can go and see the bank any time you want," Paul said. "It'd be nice to have your name on the deeds as well as mine."

"Great! Let's sort it out next week," I said at once. "Then I'll get Black's Auto Repairs going again."

"When are you going to see Sam and the others?" he asked me then. "You ought to let them know you're here."

"Tomorrow," I decided. "I'm not putting it off, I just wanted a day with you first."

"You want me to go with you?" Paul offered.

"Not this time. I think I should see them on my own. I've got a lot to tell them."

"Sure, ok." Paul put his empty plate down and poured us both some more wine. "Are you sure you don't want to make a habit of this? You're much better at cooking than me."

"Hmm...well, I guess I owe you at least another dinner for the tattoo," I said. "I'll make something tomorrow, but after that it's your turn. And take out doesn't count."

I went over to Sam's house on Saturday afternoon. I walked rather than drove, since it was only ten minutes on foot. Emily answered the door and immediately threw her arms around me in delight.

"I can't believe you're here," she said, standing back to look at me. "Sam! Look who's here!"

He appeared seconds later.

"Jacob! Come on in, what are you doing standing out there?" He reached out to pull me into the house and gave me a hug. "What the hell did you do to your hair?"

"It's a long story. I'll tell you later."

"So are you visiting?"

"I...uh..."

"Jake! Shit, what are you doing here?" Jared appeared in the room then and rushed over to give me a hug. "We thought we were never going to see you again. Me and Kim are both here."

Suddenly a baby began crying and Emily hurried out of the room, returning quickly with a little boy in her arms, bouncing him as he yelled and waved his arms in frustration.

"This is JJ, he's a little out of sorts today, I'm afraid."

I grinned, still amazed they had given the baby my name for his middle name.

"Come on in and sit down; do you want a beer?"

Sam ushered me into the living room and Jared followed, joining Kim who was sitting on the sofa.

"A beer would be good, thanks," I said and sat down.

"So, finally you're visiting," Jared said. "How long are you staying?"

"Um...for good," I told him. "I moved back."

"Are you serious? That's great!" Sam exclaimed, appearing with three bottles of beer in his hand. He passed one to me and one to Jared, then sat down. "So where are you staying at the moment?"

"My old house," I said with a grin.

"With _Paul_? Jesus, there'll be fireworks, then," Jared exclaimed.

"I don't think so, we get on pretty well now," I said mildly. "Since he came to visit me in Texas."

"You and Paul get on?" Sam's eyebrows rose. "So come on, tell us everything. Why did you leave?"

I started at the beginning, describing my life in Fredericksburg - the house, my business, Hank and Dave, then the fire and my decision to come back. Jared and Kim had to leave after a while as she had other things to do, but I stayed talking to Sam and Emily for a while longer, catching up on their news and some gossip about Embry and Marie, who had just discovered they were expecting a baby. Quil was still being a big brother to Claire and Leah was engaged to her boyfriend, Steven. Even Seth had a girlfriend; coincidentally Samantha was Steven's younger sister.

"I can't wait to see everyone else," I said. "I'll catch up with some of them tomorrow. I'm going to have to move my ass in a minute." I was reluctant to go, but at the same time I couldn't wait to get home and see Paul. Another thirty minutes and he would be back from work.

I made it back just a few minutes before he turned up and I was in the process of digging out something to make for dinner when he came in. I found ground beef in the freezer and put it in the microwave to defrost.

"Hey." Paul came over and wrapped his arms around me. "What are we eating?"

"Pasta. You can help, since you're back."

"Only if you're going to use the jar of sauce in the cupboard."

"No, I'm making _proper_ sauce. Alright, if you're so useless in the kitchen, you can be my taster," I teased.

"Mmm, what do you want me to taste?" He nibbled my neck. "How about I just have you for dinner?"

"You can have me for dessert," I said, pushing him off.

"That had better be a promise." He leaned against the kitchen counter and watched as I crushed garlic, chopped onions and opened a can of tomatoes in the absence of passata.

In ten minutes the sauce was bubbling away and I poured half a pack of penne pasta into a pan of water. I sprinkled salt, pepper and oregano in the sauce and then tasted it.

"I thought I was the taster?"

Paul came over to me and slid his arms around my waist, resting lightly against my back. I dipped the spoon back into the sauce and held it up to my own shoulder for him.

"Yeah, that's pretty good. Not as good as you, though." He licked my ear.

"Stop it, the sauce will burn." I put the spoon down again.

"Aww, come on. One kiss and I'll leave you alone," he teased. "I haven't seen you all day."

"One. Then back off." I turned my head and brushed my lips against his quickly.

"Is that the best you can do?" pouted Paul.

"Oh, shit."

I elbowed him and he followed my gaze to the window where Jared could be seen outside, his eyes wide and mouth hanging open. Paul just laughed and then let go of me.

"I take it from his face you didn't say anything to him and Sam earlier about us."

"No, I thought we'd both tell them." I could feel my face going red and I turned my attention back to the stove.

"You look cute when you blush," Paul sniggered and went to open the door. "Hey, Jared! What are you doing lurking out there spying through the window like a fucking peeping Tom? Get in here!" he shouted.

The pair of them came back into the kitchen a moment later.

"So now you know," Paul was saying. "You can shut your mouth now, if you like."

"Sorry." Jared reddened a touch and I felt slightly less embarrassed. "So...obviously you're together. How long?"

"Since Sam sent me to Texas looking for Jake months ago," Paul told him.

"I guess I shouldn't really be all that surprised," said Jared thoughtfully. "I always thought there was something weird with you two."

"Like what?" I asked, stirring the sauce.

"More Paul than you. He's _never_ been seen with anyone, for starters. And when you left, suddenly he bought your house and spent the last year with a face like someone murdered his cat."

"I hate cats," Paul grinned.

"Then he goes off to Texas to look for you and suddenly he's lit up like a beacon."

"Fuck off," muttered Paul.

"You were. And then in a lousy temper this last week."

"That was my fault," I put in. "I promised to visit, then there was the fire and everything and I cancelled."

"Ahh," Jared said as if he were putting everything together in his head. "So this is a permanent thing, is it?"

"Yeah, I moved in," I said. "When I said I was staying here, I didn't mean just for a couple of days until I find somewhere better."

"You had better _not_ find somewhere better," Paul smiled.

"Wow," Jared said. "The others are going to be really surprised too."

"Are you going to tell them?" I asked him.

"No, that's up to you, isn't it?" he said at once. "I'll only tell Kim."

"I thought I'd try and catch up with Embry and Quil and the others tomorrow," I said.

"They'll be over the moon you're back," Jared told me. "Look, I'll get out of your hair - what there is of it!"

"What did you come over for anyway?" Paul asked.

"Um...oh, Kim's brother wants a new tat, I said I'd ask if you can fit him in Monday afternoon."

"So why didn't you call then?" Paul asked suspiciously.

"Because I was on the way out to get milk and I have to walk right by your house. Jesus, Paul; did you think I came by on purpose to see what you're up to?"

Paul laughed. "What time does Kev want to come over?"

"What?" Jared frowned, distracted.

"For his ink?"

"Oh...uh...two?"

"Yeah, I can do that," nodded Paul.

"You going to write it down?" prompted Jared.

"My bookings are in my head," Paul grinned, tapping the side of his head. "Go on, leave us alone, we were just about to have dinner. I'm looking forward to the dessert most of all." He glanced over at me and winked.

Jared left quickly and I began serving up the food. Well, he hadn't seemed in the least horrified that Paul and I were together - only surprised. Knowing the others, I guessed they would have a similar reaction.

The next day we went over to the Clearwaters' together to see Leah and Seth. Sue was out and the pair of them were watching television. When Leah opened the door, her face lit up and she threw herself into my arms.

"Oh my God! You're really here? Sam said you were here! Come in, come in!" She grabbed my hand and began to drag me into the house, just as Seth appeared and launched himself at me.

"You came back! I thought I was never going to see you again, Jake!" he cried.

Paul followed me inside and Leah stared at him. "And what are you doing hanging around?"

Over the next few minutes, I gave the pair of them a rough outline of what had happened in Texas and Paul added that I had moved into my old house with him.

"You two are really together?" Leah said. "Jacob, you seriously have your work cut out." Then she laughed as Paul scowled. "That's great news though. It's about time someone hooked up with this sour-tempered son-of-a-bitch."

"Sour-tempered? Speak for yourself!" exclaimed Paul. "How long were you giving us all a headache over Sam?"

"At least I didn't shut myself off from everyone, but then I suppose you didn't want us all guessing you wanted Jacob, did you? Least of all him."

"Shut up, Leah," Paul sighed.

Leah just laughed. "So, have you told the others?"

"Jared knows. I haven't even seen Embry and Quil yet," I said. "We were going to track them down next."

"They're all over at Sam's," said Seth. "He called earlier. We're on our way over there soon; why don't you come with us?"

"Still having the Sunday pack meetings, then?" I asked, remembering how we used to all get together in the late morning. Emily would make brunch for everyone and then later we'd all phase and patrol.

"Yeah, sort of, but no one phased since the battle with Victoria's army," said Leah.

"I did a few times," Paul put in.

"Well, I wasn't counting you; you've never been able to control your temper."

"At least I can control my thoughts," growled Paul.

"Guys, come on," I said. "Do you have to fight the minute I come back?"

"We never stopped. It's not serious." Paul grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. "Let's get over to Sam's. Emily's probably cooking something."

"Pig," Seth said, leaping up. "He still hoovers up all the grub, Jacob."

The four of us walked to Sam and Emily's place again. Sure enough, as soon as Seth opened the door and let us in, the smell of fresh baked muffins wafted to our nostrils. Apple and cinnamon, I thought - one of my favourites.

Embry and Quil were delighted to see me and I recited the story of Texas all over again, this time putting in the part where Paul came back for a second visit. Everyone's eyebrows rose at this point and I glanced over at Sam, wondering what he was going to think. What he thought was more important than any of the others.

"Now he's back he moved in with me," Paul finished.

"Wow, you two really got together?" Embry said in surprise.

"Yeah," I nodded, looking over at Sam again. He was grinning.

"I guess that explains a few things," he said. "You really want to live in your Dad's house again?"

"Yes, I'm buying back into it," I told him, smiling at Paul. "I'm going to set up a proper business again from the workshop there. So make sure you all bring your cars and trucks to me, or I'll want to know why!"

Jared arrived a few minutes later and once again all the pack was together. Emily handed out muffins and we stayed until the late afternoon, catching up on all the news until Embry announced that Marie would be wanting him back for dinner and took himself off. Paul and I left soon after, walking back to the house holding hands. I couldn't seem to wipe the smile off my face and once again I wondered why I hadn't come back before. It almost seemed like I had never been away.


	18. Chapter 18

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

On Monday I followed Paul into Forks in my truck. He turned off towards his store and I drove on to a hardware store to buy some metal sheeting, sturdy locks and various tools to repair the old shed which was looking a little the worse for wear in places. The roof had a leak and there was a hole in one corner of the wall. I spent the rest of the day carrying out the repairs and cleaning the place up, disposing of all the old junk in there and ridding the place of spider webs, birds' nests and a family of rats.

The rest of the week was equally busy. I arranged for an electrician to come over and wire the new workshop up, installed a new metal tool cabinet with everything I could possibly need in it and I ordered a ramp and a tyre machine to be delivered the following week. I ordered a new sign, arranged for an advertisement in the Forks newspaper and then on Friday I dragged out my grim black suit again to accompany Paul to the bank. I wrote out a check for a hundred thousand dollars, Paul and I signed a couple of forms and suddenly I owned half of my old property again. It was much easier than I had expected, probably due to the fact that the bank manager wasn't the intimidating grey-haired bespectacled school master type you would expect, but a very young guy who had not long stepped into his father's shoes and was apparently a good customer of Paul's. At first glance he looked prim and proper in his crisp white shirt and grey tie, but after ten minutes chatting mainly with Paul, he rolled his sleeves up to reveal several tattoos. I couldn't help grinning. When we left, a new copy of the deeds was in my pocket, in the name of P Lahote and J Black - at last my return was permanent and in writing.

That night I got a call from Dave in Fredericksburg to tell me Hank's funeral was the following Tuesday. He figured I would want to know since we had been friends. I asked him how he was getting on and he reported he was taking the job in Luckenbach starting in two weeks. He guessed they would be in touch with me before too long for a reference.

"What's up?" Paul asked as I put the phone down a few minutes later.

"Hank's funeral is on Tuesday," I said. "I feel like I should go."

"So go," he said at once. "He was your friend, right?"

"Yeah. Will you go with me?"

"Um..." Paul hesitated for a brief moment and then nodded. "Yeah, sure I'll go."

"You don't have to," I told him. He had seemed curiously reluctant, but now he just laughed.

"You think I'll let you go back to Texas again on your own? You might not come back! I've nothing booked in for Tuesday yet and I'll shift Wednesday morning's job to the afternoon."

On Sunday we hung out with the pack at Sam's house again. It was like old times and I almost expected us all to phase later and run in the woods together, but there was no mention of it. The vampires were long gone except for the Cullens and there was no longer any need for patrols or sparring in readiness for a fight. I found myself a little disappointed and when we left I said as much to Paul.

"I kind of thought we'd all phase."

"You know we haven't done that since long before you left."

"Yeah, I know, Leah said. I suppose it seemed like something we always did when we were together. But you have, right? You said when we were at the Clearwaters..."

"I didn't do it for the fun of it," Paul admitted. "It was just a few times in the first couple of months after you left. I guess I couldn't cope with how I was feeling."

"Well, there's nothing stopping us doing it for the hell of it, is there?" I grinned. "It'd be twice the fun since we won't have to hide our thoughts."

"I hadn't thought of it like that. Let's hurry up and get home, it'll be dark soon." Paul began to walk faster and I quickened my pace to keep up with him, feeling a touch of excitement as I thought of us phasing and scampering in the woods together.

An hour later with La Push in darkness, we stripped off our clothes and stepped outside. The back of the house couldn't be seen by anyone nearby and it wasn't far to the woods. We phased simultaneously by the rear wall of the house and then bounded across the grass to the trees.

_'I never really thought I'd want to do this again,'_ Paul's voice came into my head._ 'I guess I always associated it with fighting or escaping pain.'_

_'It shouldn't have to be,'_ I said. '_Suppose you think about this..._'

I pictured myself lying on my bed naked, Paul kneeling over me, running his hands over my body.

_'Hell, Jake, are you going to torment me like that all night?' _Paul's voice in my head was almost a growl.

_'Not _all_ night. It'd be a shame to just be thinking and not doing.'_ I leaped away from him, flying through the trees, delighting in the feel of the soft ground beneath my paws, the wind caused by my own speed in my face. Paul raced after me.

I brought to mind another image - me running naked through the woods in human form, Paul chasing me, grabbing me and pulling me to the ground, resting his body on mine, kissing me.

_'You are such a fucking tease!'_

_'You love it.'_

_'I love you. Which is the only reason I'm letting you get away with it.'_

_'Oh, you're _letting_ me do this to you? I'd like to see you try and...'_

My response was cut off suddenly by his front paws landing on my back, halting my run and knocking me flat to the ground, my legs curled under me.

_'...stop me,'_ I finished and laughed as he gently grabbed me by the neck with his teeth. He rolled me onto my back and planted one large paw on my chest so I was pinned there, helpless.

_'See how you like it.'_

My mind was immediately filled with his own fantasy. I was still lying on the bed as in my own first thought, but a series of images followed rapidly, almost blurring into each other with their urgency. Paul bending over me, kissing me, biting my neck, his hands pinning me down, lowering his body onto mine, hands under my hips, lifting me, thrusting himself in hard, harder, driving me in an instant towards...nothing. He pulled out, sat up and let me go while I lay there groaning in frustration.

_'I can't believe you did that.'_ I heard myself whine almost desperately. _'That's just cruel, Paul.'_

_'You love me really.'_ He stepped back and took his paw off me. '_I was just playing you at your own game. Pretty good fun, this.' _His laughter filled my head and he turned and began to trot back the way we had come.

I scrambled up and charged after him, panting. In wolf form arousal and frustration were only more intense than they were as humans. All I could think about was getting back to the house as fast as possible and diving into bed, but Paul was now heading back at a leisurely pace, nose in the air, sniffing at the scents of the wood.

_'This is pretty cool, I'm glad you wanted to try it,'_ he said.

_'Hurry up, will you?'_

_'Oh, you want to go back now? I thought you wanted to frolic in the woods?_' he taunted.

_'I want you to fuck me!'_ I exclaimed. _'You know I do!'_

_'Well, you'll have to wait, won't you? A few minutes ago you wanted us to tease each other.'_

_'Damn you_.'

I summoned up another image, knowing it would torment me further, but unable to help getting my own back a little. I thought of something I had never done before, that he had never asked me to do, or done to me. He sat on the edge of the bed, frustrated, hard, waiting for me to go to the bedroom. I walked in, wearing those grey jersey shorts I knew he liked so much, the fabric pulled tight over my erection.

A groan came into my head and I chuckled.

I dropped to my knees on the floor in front of him, reached up to give him a kiss and then lowered my head again, grasping his dick in my hand and brushing the tip of my tongue over the head. I ran my hand up and down the shaft slowly and followed it with my mouth.

_'Alright, enough! Fucking hell, Jacob!'_ Paul sprang away from me and began to fly back towards La Push at top speed. I bounded after him, laughing delightedly.

We were back at the house in minutes, shaking the light misty rain which had begun to fall off our fur before phasing back by the door and bursting into the house. Paul kicked the door closed and grabbed me in his arms immediately. His erection jabbed my stomach and his lips crushed mine, his tongue plunging eagerly into my mouth. I whimpered into his mouth, just as aroused myself and longing for him. He broke the kiss after a moment and met my eyes.

"So are you going to do what you were thinking about?" he whispered, raising one eyebrow.

"Oh, I don't know. I wasn't sure you'd want me to." I reached down and slid my hand between us to touch him. Did I really want it in my mouth? "Sit down."

I pushed him backwards a couple of feet to the couch and he sank down quickly. I kneeled down on the carpet in front of him, my heart hammering. I grasped him again and leaned forward, experimentally touching the tip of my tongue to the head of his dick. He groaned and closed his eyes, leaning back against the cushions. I ran my tongue down his length and then back up a couple of times, then drew the end into my mouth.

"Jesus," Paul hissed and sank his teeth into his lip.

I dropped my head lower, taking two or three inches of him into my mouth, rolling my tongue around, squeezing with my hand at the same time. He groaned and whimpered and I carried on, stroking, sucking, nibbling gently until a couple of minutes later he suddenly reached out and touched my head.

"Woah, stop or you're gonna get a mouthful."

I had actually thought that was the point and I ignored him, moving my hand faster, sucking until he erupted, spurting into my mouth and throat. I didn't stop until I had drawn every last drop out of him and then I let go and sat back on my heels. I found I quite liked the taste of him and I grinned now as he opened his eyes, the pupils huge.

"Was that ok?" I asked, tongue in cheek.

"Don't ask stupid questions," Paul panted and then smirked. "Come here. I can't reach you down there."

I lifted myself off the floor and onto the couch, resting my head on Paul's chest. He wrapped both arms around me and hugged me tight.

"You're amazing," he said. "I keep having to pinch myself to see if I'm dreaming or you're really here."

"I'm here," I murmured. "I'm always going to be here. I love you."

"I love you too. Let's go to bed." He pushed me off him slowly and got to his feet. "Shit, my legs feel like jelly."

I followed him into the bedroom and we lay cuddling and kissing for a while until he was ready again while I suffered in silence, aching and longing for him to fuck me.

"What are you thinking?" he asked me after a few minutes.

"It's unrepeatable."

"I'd hear it if we were phased," Paul reminded me.

"Yeah, but I'd feel kind of silly saying it out loud."

"Try. There's no difference really." He kissed my ear and hugged me tighter. "Whisper."

"I was thinking that..." I could feel my face heating up, which was stupid. He was right; if we were phased he would hear every thought, every little detail. "I was thinking about you fucking me. Me on hands and knees, you behind me, your hands on me, one arm around me jacking me off and your dick in me, teasing me a little bit until you can't wait any longer, then harder and faster until you come in me."

Paul's breath hissed out through his teeth and he rolled me onto my back, resting on top of me for a moment, his erection throbbing against mine.

"You turn me on so much, you know that?"

I grinned up at him. "So am I going to get my fantasy? You got yours after all."

He pulled away from me and sat up.

"Turn around."

I rolled over onto my front and pushed myself up on hands and knees, my head hanging low and my legs spread wide apart. I was aching and quivering with excitement, my erection twitching against my stomach. Paul put one hand on my thigh and stroked slowly downwards to the back of my knee, then up the inside until he was cupping my balls, squeezing gently. He placed the other hand on my butt and pressed his thumb down between the cheeks, teasing me and I just knew he was going to draw it out, torment me and make me wait. I dropped my head lower, breathing fast as he removed his thumb and then I felt his _tongue_ touch the ridge between my balls and my ass, warm and wet and moving in little circles, working its way slowly backwards until it touched my hole.

"Oh, God," I groaned. "Don't. Jesus." I lowered my upper body until I could rest my elbows on the mattress. My arms were shaking too much to continue holding me upright and I shuddered and gasped as he reached around me with his free hand and took hold of my dick, beginning to pump it slowly. As he continued tormenting the three most sensitive parts of me with both hands and mouth, I came rapidly, spurting into his hand and onto the mattress in front of me.

I crouched there, panting, feeling sweat breaking out all over my body. I felt spent, but at the same time I was still hard. I felt the bed shift as Paul moved around behind me and then suddenly he touched me again, fingers slick with lube sliding gently into me, massaging internally. I moaned loudly, squirming against his hand.

"God, Paul," I gasped. "Please..."

"Please what?"

"Fuck me. Now. Please," I whined.

He withdrew his fingers immediately and a moment later the end of his erection touched me, pressing forward slowly until it slid in, the full length of it filling me.

"Is that what you want?" he murmured, resting his hands on my hips and holding me firmly as he began to pull out again.

"Yes," I hissed.

He began to move faster, each thrust harder than the last until he was ramming himself into me with such vigour than I had to rest one of my hands on the wall in front of me to prevent him shoving me forward into it. We came together, panting and groaning, him filling me with warm wetness and me spraying the pillow under me. When he withdrew slowly and slid both arms around me, we collapsed on our right sides, him moulded to my back, his hot breath coming in harsh gasps in my ear.

"I love you, Paul," I panted.

"I love you too, you tease. You know, that phasing thing was pretty good; we should do that again sometime."

"Yeah, and then we'll stay nineteen forever," I pointed out, remembering that frequent phasing halted aging.

"Hmm, well you talking dirty was pretty good too," he grinned. "We should get a quick shower."

"Yeah, in a minute. I can't move." I closed my eyes, thinking I would get up in just another minute when my legs felt like they belonged to me again. Then instantly I was asleep.


	19. Chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

On Tuesday morning we left early for Seattle in Paul's truck. We shared a backpack to hold a single change of clothes each and some toiletries and packed our suits and smart shoes and so on in a separate flat bag, both of which could be taken on the plane as carry-on luggage. I had been a little surprised at Paul's apparent reluctance to go back with me when I had first asked him and later the reason for it became clear - a reason which completely astounded me.

We parked up in the airport lot, took the connecting bus to the terminal and collected our tickets, having already booked seats online to make sure we could get on the nine o'clock flight. It would land us in Austin at twelve-thirty, a ninety minute drive to Fredericksburg, check into a motel and quickly change and make it to the funeral for four o'clock. I wondered if maybe we should have flown down on Monday after all; we were cutting it a little fine and if there was any kind of delay we'd miss it.

I fiddled with my boarding pass and fidgeted in my seat as we waited for the flight to be called. We had already been sent through to the departure lounge, but there was still around thirty minutes to go before boarding. I had never flown before and was quite looking forward to the new experience, but I was anxious that we get there on time so it made me nervous.

"What's the matter?" Paul asked, looking somewhat irritable.

"Nothing, I'm fine."

"You're not."

"I'm just a bit nervous."

"About flying?"

"No, about being late."

"We're not going to be late," he said shortly.

He looked away from me, sitting with his elbows resting on his knees, his head down. I stared at him for a second. He was chewing his bottom lip, his brows drawn together in a frown. He picked at an imaginary rough nail on one finger, then sat up and leaned against the back of the seat, crossing one foot over the other knee. Then he dropped his foot back to the floor and leaned forward again. I watched him continue to shuffle and change position for a few minutes, my own worry about being on time forgotten.

"Paul?"

"What!" he snapped.

"You know, if you really don't want to go, it's ok," I said, a little taken aback. He was pissed and I had no idea why.

"I bought the ticket already, of course I'm going," he grunted.

"But you're not happy about it."

"Will you just leave it?"

"Hey..." I reached out and put my hand on his arm. He was hot and his skin felt damp as if he were breaking out in a sudden sweat.

"I said leave it!" he growled and jerked away from me. Then he sighed heavily and looked at me. "I'm sorry, Jake. This is going to sound really stupid."

"What is?"

"I fucking hate flying." He snorted and dragged a hand through his short hair.

"Why didn't you tell me before?"

"Because...I don't know, I'm supposed to be a tough guy. When I said I hate flying, I meant it scares the shit out of me."

Paul was scared? Somehow I had never imagined him being scared of anything. Like he said, he was a tough guy, nothing ever seemed to bother him. I reached out again and slid my hand into his and this time he didn't pull away.

"You know, you really don't have to go with me," I said.

"I want to. Seriously. Maybe it'll be ok this time since you're with me. First time I flew down to Austin when Sam sent me looking for you, it was fine. All I could think about was seeing you again; I hardly even noticed I was...thirty-odd-thousand feet in the air." He shuddered. "Coming back I was a mess. We slept together and then you told me to go away, so the whole journey back I felt like shit anyway. Then there was turbulance; the plane plummeted a couple of hundred feet and I thought I was going to die. Ridiculous, huh? You're less likely to die in a plane crash than be run over a bus. I read that somewhere."

I squeezed his hand tighter. He was talking faster and faster and I was still finding it surprising that something could actually unsettle Paul this much.

"Second time I went down there it was ok, I guess. I expected to hate it, but in the end I was so excited about being with you again, knowing you wanted to see me, it kind of masked it. Coming home, same thing as the first time. Feeling like hell having to leave you. The flight was fine, but I kept thinking all this stupid shit like, if it comes down I'll never see you again. It was twice as hard as when you sent me away the first time; I thought if something happened to me you'd actually miss me."

"God, Paul," I said. "I..."

"You think I'm a jerk," he said on a half laugh.

"No, I think you're cute," I smiled. "I guess it's my turn to look after you, then."

"At least if we crash, we're gonna go together," he said.

"Shut up. We won't crash. We'll get there and back fine, get off the plane here tomorrow safe and sound and then be run down by the shuttle bus."

Paul laughed, more genuinely this time. "I _am_ a jerk," he said. "Seriously, what the hell do I have to be scared about? I got you, haven't I?"

He seemed to relax after that and a little while later we were boarding the plane, finding our seats, stashing our luggage in one of the overhead bins. I actually found the whole thing just a little exciting, even the take-off during which Paul sat next to me with his eyes shut, beads of sweat standing out on his forehead and upper lip and his hand gripping mine so tight I thought he may well break a few bones. Eventually the plane levelled out and he let go of me and opened his eyes.

"Are you ok?" I whispered.

"Yeah. Fine. I worry too much." He smiled at me and it only seemed a tiny bit forced. "You better not tell the rest of the pack about this, I'll never live it down."

"It might make Leah think you're actually human," I teased.

"Jacob..."

"I'm joking, I'm not going to say anything."

We passed the next couple of hours watching a movie on the individual screens in front of us and then a light snack of sandwiches, cookies, fruit and coffee was brought round to the passengers.

"This coffee is worse than yours," Paul grinned. "Here, have mine."

He had obviously relaxed about the flying and by the time the food trays were cleared away, there was only another thirty minutes to go before we were descending towards Austin. The landing was a little rough and Paul grimaced but didn't say anything. He heaved a sigh of relief when we began taxiing towards the terminal and then smiled at me.

"Well, we're still alive."

I elbowed him. "I should have stopped at Portland when I left. Then you wouldn't have had to fly to see me."

"You'd never have gotten rid of me either; I'd have been driving over every weekend," he grinned.

Once off the plane we hurried out of the building to find a rental car. I drove this time and we made it to Fredericksburg a little late, but not too late for the funeral. There wasn't really time to check into a motel, but I called Dave to let him know we had arrived and he insisted we go over to his house right away to freshen up and change there.

The funeral was a pretty quiet affair. There were only a handful of people there - Paul and I, Dave and AnnaBeth, Hank's brother from Dallas and his wife, Herb from the parts store and a couple of other friends. Tammy tiptoed in just as the service began and stood at the back wearing a hat and dark glasses, looking as if she wasn't sure if she should be there or not. She slipped away immediately afterwards before even the priest could speak to her.

We went back to Dave's house then and after a quiet consultation with AnnaBeth, he suggested we stay over rather than have to find a motel.

"You don't have to do that, really," I protested.

"Don't be stupid, Jacob, we're friends, aren't we?"

"Yeah, but..."

"And any friend of yours is one of mine." He smiled and nodded at Paul. "You can have the guest room - top of the stairs on the left. Anna's gonna start cooking a meal soon - fried chicken and mashed potatoes. You really don't want to miss it."

"Ok, thanks, Dave." We went up to the room, changed out of our suits and then went back down to the living room. Dave handed out beers and then spent an hour or so chatting to us until the meal was ready.

Later AnnaBeth's mother called in to bring the baby whom she had been minding for the afternoon. The little girl, Bethany was a year old, with bright red hair and blue eyes just like her mother. Anna gave her a bottle and then put her down while the rest of us continued talking.

We retired pretty early, exhausted after the long day of travelling and having to rise at five again on Wednesday to drive back to Austin in time for the eight-thirty flight.

The journey home was a little more relaxed. By the time we boarded the plane Paul was a bit tense, but not half as much as he had been on the way down. He held onto my hand, but told me he was fine and only using the excuse to keep hold of me.

"Do you really need an excuse?" I teased.

The flight was uneventful and by one o'clock we were on the road driving back to Forks. Paul drove, which was just as well as my cellphone rang fifteen minutes into the journey. Much to my delight it was my first customer; not even a person I knew, but someone who had seen Black's Auto Repairs' ad in the newspaper and wanted a service doing. He was from Forks, but had an altercation with the shop there and didn't want to go back. I booked him in for the following morning.

"Job already?" Paul asked as I hung up.

"Yeah."

"That's great." He glanced at the clock. "Shit, I'll be late for my booking by the time we get home and..."

"Just stop in Forks," I said at once. "I can hang around."

"I'm outlining a back piece, I'll be hours," he told me.

"Well, then I'll go home and come back and pick you up later."

"Ok, thanks."

We reached Forks five minutes before Paul's appointment and he gave me a quick kiss, then jumped out of the truck. I slid over behind the wheel and drove home, to find Embry wandering around outside, his car parked by my new workshop.

"Hey, Embry, what are you doing here?"

"Looking for you. Where've you been?"

"Texas."

"Sick of us already?" Embry grinned.

"Getting that way. No, we went back for Hank's funeral."

"Paul went with you?"

"Yeah. So did you want something?"

"That heap of shit over there..." he jerked his thumb in the direction of the car, "...is making some weird kind of humming noise and vibrating. Could you check it out? I'm not in any rush."

"Sure, I'll take a look now," I said. "It sounds like the wheel bearings."

I dumped the bags in the house first and changed into some scruffier clothes for working.

"Must be strange being back here, in this house," Embry commented as I came out of the bedroom.

"No, actually it feels like I was never away," I grinned.

"What's it like living with Paul? Bet you're walking on eggshells," teased Embry.

"Not at all."

"You mean he's mellowing in his old age?"

"No, he's mellow because I'm here," I said smugly. "He was only so shitty before because he had to keep his thoughts about me to himself."

"I guess it'll just take me a while to get used to," Embry smiled. "I never expected you to end up with a guy, least of all Paul."

He followed me outside as I went to take a look at the car. I discovered quickly that it needed new wheel bearings, which I would have to get in. Embry told me to take my time and hung around a little longer gossiping. When he left I drove back into Forks and went to see a couple of motor spares stores to find out where I could get the best deal. One refused point blank to give me an account or even a discount, although their prices were lower to begin with. However, the second one was managed by someone who had been pretty good friends with my Dad and he quickly confirmed that Billy's son didn't need to prove himself trustworthy in advance. He gave me a thousand dollar account and supplied me with wheel bearings for Embry's car and the filters, oil and so on for servicing my next booking the following day.

Afterwards I went over to Paul's store and passed the time talking to him and his customer, who was having an enormous motorcycle design inked onto his back. The outline was maybe an hour from being finished now so I waited until it was done so Paul could come with me.

From the next morning I found myself busy most of the time. The bookings for work began coming in thick and fast, starting with Emily's car, Quil's grandfather's truck and Paul's father's sports car, then numerous people responding to my ad, some just on the off-chance I might do a better or more reasonably priced job than their usual shop and some attracted by me being Billy's son. At the rate things were going I would soon be having to hire a guy to work for me.

Both Paul and I usually worked Saturdays unless we didn't already have jobs booked in and once again Sundays became a day for the pack, although frequently it wasn't just the guys any more, but the whole 'family' as we thought of ourselves. Kim, Marie, Claire, Steven and Samantha would all join us at Sam's house either in the morning when Emily would make brunch, or later on when Sam and Embry would cremate vast quantities of steak on the barbeque while the rest of us did our best to spear pieces with our forks while they were still bleeding.

I thought to myself for about the thousandth time since I had come home that it felt as if I'd never been away, although I had to wonder if I had never gone, would Paul ever have made his feelings known to me? I had always thought everything happened for a reason, so I guessed me going away had been the best thing at the time for both me and him. It had certainly been the best thing for me at the time.

"Hey." Paul threw himself down on the rug I was lying on in Sam and Emily's back yard while we waited for the barbeque to start up. As usual Sam was feeding a stack of paper and wood into it in an effort to make the charcoal light, which invariably resulted in everyone being covered in fragments of burnt paper and soot after a while.

I propped myself up on one elbow and smiled at Paul.

"What are you thinking?" he asked. "You looked like you were miles away."

"I was just wondering, if I never went away, would we be here now, like this?"

"You mean together?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know, I would hope so. I might have got my act together eventually and spoken to you. I suppose you being in Texas gave me a kick in the ass though."

"Good thing I went, then," I grinned.

"Hmm, that's debatable. You put me through hell." He leaned closer to kiss me and as usual, one brief caress of lips quickly deepened.

"Guys, come on," Leah protested, walking over and kicking Paul none too gently in the ankle. "There's children present." She jerked her head in the direction of Claire who was playing with Quil, rolling a giant beach ball back and forth.

"Sorry." I pulled away and sat up. Paul sniggered and gave my knee a squeeze. "Do you think they'll notice if we disappear?"

"Yeah, probably." I pushed his hand off. "Anyway, I want some burnt steak. You'll have to wait."

"Damn you." Paul hauled himself up and draped his arm around my neck instead. "I love you," he whispered.

"I love you too." I rested my head against his shoulder. "You reckon we'll still be doing this when we're like, ninety?"

"What, a pair of decrepit old wolves smooching together while we wait for Sam's burnt offerings? Yeah, probably," he grinned. "If you still want me when we're ninety."

"I'm always going to want you," I whispered and then giggled as I realised how corny we probably sounded. Still, what did it matter? "I love you, Paul," I said again.

"Love you too. Always."


End file.
